Welcome To… Spring??? March 20, 2013
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: kitchen window., snow, Spring
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Wednesday, March 20, 2013, the first official day of Spring:
Another shot taken through my kitchen window.
This is unlikely to last, the sun being higher in the sky these days.
But who’s to say this will be our last wintry blast? 😉
Spring, Almost… March 19, 2013
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Charlemont MA, deer, snow, Spring, winter
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Today, Monday, is two days short of the official start of Spring.
But this is Massachusetts, where we don’t care about no stinking calendar.
So the day began with our yard threatening to “green up,” the grass nearly bare of snow.
While making breakfast, I snapped this shot of deer grazing out past our slumbering garden:
…taken through an unfortunately filthy window, as Winter tends to render them before a real Spring cleaning. I didn’t have the proper lens on hand, so this is a severe crop of a larger photo. All-in-all, I’m satisfied with the result.
I spent the bulk of the day loading split wood onto the porch in anticipation of the predicted winter storm, then bombed off to Berkshire county to deliver a framed photo to my friend Tim. I was pleased by his reception of the piece and humbled by his refusal of the Good Friend Discount.
Thanks, Tim. I’ll remember that.
On the way home the weather caught up to me, and by the time I hit Charlemont it was snowing:
We’re expecting 10″ or more, and judging by the way it’s coming down, we might not be disappointed!
Winter At Last! December 27, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: snow, Western MA, winter
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Last weekend we had a taste of wintry things to come – frozen ponds:
…snow in the hill towns:
…and roads obscured by blowing snow:
I slid off that one going about twenty MPH (not at this exact spot) and did a nose-plant in a six foot ditch. Coulda been worse; I threw it in 4 wheel drive and kept going. The incident added to the deterioration of the lower plastic panel on my front bumper, which needed replacing anyway.
Hey, everything still works and I’m not injured in the least, so that’s a great outcome for a zero-friction event!
This morning, though, was the real start of winter:
We got upwards of a foot of this beautiful stuff. Looks like Susan and I are going snow shoeing! 🙂
When it came to shoveling our cars out, my younger daughter Ursula (visiting from Boston) was a champion:
The snow was somewhat heavier than we’d hoped and stuck annoyingly to our shovels, but we toughed it out long enough to get the cars cleared with enough clearance for our plow guy to handle the rest.
Thanks, Ursi, and Thank You Father Sky! 😉
What’s Up With The White Stuff? December 19, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: cows, sleet, snow, Windsor MA
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Inquiring minds want to know:
Apparently these Wee Beasties weren’t in the moooood for sleet. 😉
Maple Sugar. November 27, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: MA, snow, sugar maple, Windsor, winter landscapes
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A light dusting of snow shrouds an old sugar maple up in Windsor, MA:
Pardon the “spottiness” of the sky, it’s snow passing in front of my lens.
First Snow. November 27, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Canon 2X tele-Extender III, Canon 400mm f/5.6L prime lens, Charlemont, horses, snow
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Here in Charlemont, the high pastures saw a nice fine snow fall throughout the day.
Local horses seemed oblivious:
Horses in a pasture up at The Warfield House, a beautiful local venue for dinner or events.
Thanks to Gizmo for these shots at 400mm, with a 2X tele-extender for the close-ups.
The Upper Cold. January 24, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: cold river, Florida MA, snow
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The upper reaches of the Cold river lie in a deep valley, sheltered from the winter sun for all but a few hours a day.
I hiked down into that rift today, negotiating stream crossings, following bear tracks for a hundred yards (they were too melted out to photograph,) and finally descending the steep ledges hemming in the river.
The emerald green waters flowed nearly silently beneath pillows of snow clinging to the larger rocks, and I picked my way gingerly out among them, poking with my ski poles to ascertain the safety of my path.
I got only this for my efforts:
…not that it’s a bad shot, but I had hoped to come away with more.
Well, at least I got a little bit of exercise!
The Elusive Honey Mole! January 23, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Bog Pond, Elliot, Fernando Duarte, honey mole, Pagan Sphinx, Savoy MA, snow, tilt-shift photography, tracks
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Tracks of a large honey mole* punctuate a couple of inches of new snow up at Bog Pond in Savoy:
“Honey mole,” you ask?
Why, yes… Honey mole! 🙂
* OK, the back story:
Years back, when our daughters were Wee Beasties, my In-laws Maria and Fernando came to visit (they had retired back to Portugal.) When Gina and her Mom came back from a day out (if I’m remembering that correctly; I bet Pagan Sphinx will remember) and I got home from work, the Grrrlz were all excited. “Daddy, Daddy, Vovo Frenando saw a Honey Mole in our garden!” they squealed.
“A “honey mole?” I queried, not having heard of that one before, and wondering how Fernando would have known about it.
Fernando came in and explained that yes, it was a “honey mole,” and a BIG one – he held his hands about 18″ apart to indicate its size.
After getting a fuller description from Fernando, it became clear that he’d seen a woodchuck – and that “Honey Mole” was his broken-English approximation of “animal.”
Sadly, Fernando has passed on, but every time I see tracks in the snow I think of him and smile.
Thanks, Fernando.
Slithering Snow Snakes!!! January 20, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: blowing snow, Cape Cod, Hawley, sand dunes, snow, wind-blown snow
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Four inches of new snow overnight, combined with persistent winds up in the hills, turned many a high meadow into sculpted ‘scapes, including this one on Grout Road up in Hawley:
I hung onto my tripod to keep it from taking flight with the wind as the world whirled dizzyingly by, snapping these shots at 1/800 of a second in an attempt to freeze (!) the charging armies of ankle-deep spindrift. Elliot might have served my quest for accuracy better, but given his less-than-weather-sealed articulations, I stuck with Ollie for these shots, choosing f:20 for best depth of field and manually focusing about a third of the way into the scene.
Here’s another shot, perhaps compositionally cleaner:
I was gunning for the erosion forms just above the center of the frame, but they were obscured by blowing spindrift. Oh well.
This looks amazingly like a dune on the cape to me; boot the white balance up 2000 degrees, and we’re at the beach!
Pardon my Trompe-l’oeil pretensions, but that snow photo looked enough like sand dunes that I wanted to see how it made the leap. 😉
We’re expecting a few more inches overnight and into tomorrow morning, so I might have more of these (such as they are) to share in the near future.
But I promise, no more Cape Cod In Hawley shots.
Berkshire Ramblin’ January 18, 2012
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.Tags: Buckland MA, Hawley MA, old barns, snow, winter
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Here are a few shots from my recent wanderings, wherein I reveled in our newly-bestowed winter.
A Buckland barn viewed through a screen of thickly falling snow:
This pair of uncharacteristically-colored silos always makes me smile, paired as they are with the adjacent Family Plot.
As the snow thinned, I got this shot of barn doors wearing their Winter Whites a ways farther up the hill:
This, by the way, is very near where the snow-covered piano sits out under a tree.
And later on in Upper Hawley (on a road which is wisely much less traveled,) a simple shot of a winter scene with the skies clearing just in time to not produce a sunset shot worth sharing:
Prudence should have turned me back, but the way forward was mostly downhill, so it couldn’t get that bad, right?
Right???
I love it when there are no power lines or guard rails, and just enough of a track to assure me that I’m not the Last Living Fool in the world.
😉
Little Bang Theory 