A White Thanksgiving. November 25, 2011
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: birches, high meadow, ice storm, spruce bog, Windsor
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Firstly, let me wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving day, filled with family and friends. We all have so much to be thankful for, regardless of the mountains of crap we’ll have to get back to shoveling tomorrow.
But that’s tomorrow. Today (or most likely “tonight” as you read this,) is a day to relax with a belly full of tryptophan and a house full of friends.
For me, that will happen tomorrow when my younger daughter Ursula will be in from Boston for a big hug and some of her favorite stuffing. It’s my favorite too, so it’s never a chore to make it for her. 😉
So I had the world to myself today, and spent some time up in Windsor, where I was delighted to find snow and ice. Delighted because so far this year we’ve had a white Halloween, a white Veterans’ Day, and now this:
Above a certain elevation, the wet woods were encased in ice. The last of the untended apples wore it well:
…shedding their crystaline sheaths as the day warmed:
I found those shots on the way up to the high meadows where routes 9 and 8A meet. It’s an expanse of meadow thrust into a wide open sky, and catches lots of weather. I’ve taken some of my favorite photos there over the last few years, and always expect to find something worth photographing.
Today it was a wintry view, with the low meadow scrub sheathed in ice:
Rushes and grasses stood stiffly in the wind:
This spot is un-Massachusetts-like, and offers me a cheap alternative to a vacation.
Aside from the meadows, the area is primarily a spruce bog:
It was cool to see this suspended animation of water in the wild woods, as in these birch leaves caught in a crystal cascade:
So, a “White Thanksgiving” it was, at least up in the hills. Tomorrow we’ll do the turkey thing. Tonight I’m just going to wish you the best.
G’night,
Ralph
Little Bang Theory 
They are really magnificent shots. I especially like the apple with the soap bubble effect ice and the one of the field under that marvelous sky. Then again, that last one would also be a nice place to get lost in if one was very, very small and had a warm coat.
Me too! 🙂 I was thrilled to find that apple slipping its frozen coils, as well as the birch leaves encased in ice.
It’s pretty early to be finding these sights here in Massachusetts, which suggests to me that winter will come hard and early. I’m going to try to be ready for it!
I find that last picture is especially fine. Here in central Texas we get an ice storm only once every so many years (I think the most recent was in 2007), so although I don’t tolerate the cold well I’m still envious that you get the chance to play around photographically with formations like this.
Steve Schwartzman
http://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com
Steve, Welcome, and thanks for commenting.
I’m pleased that you liked that last shot. I’ve been struggling with capturing the real spirit of ice-encrusted trees; there’s something about the in-the-moment experience which has thus far eluded me, and might continue to do so, as I’m not satisfactorily solving that puzzle. I’ve narrowed it down to a matter of the angle of vision relative to the light, but that solution allows little latitude for subject and composition.
I’ll check out your wildflowers, though, as that’s another area I’m interested in but still learning about.