Happy New Year

May you enjoy your weather as much as I enjoyed mine.

Dog Number Two

I should mention that when I bring my camera downstairs in the morning one of my dogs goes absolutely nuts, dancing and whining as if I have a steak in my hands. There may be hot dogs or other dog treats used in these photos, and they may spend a lot of time staring up at me trying to convince me they're cute enough for a treat. My sister's dog Deuce.Dog Deuce Snowy

Snowy Dog

Finally some snow that stuck around. Christmas is over, so my rush of working is waning. My family that was visiting has all gone home, and I just got my house back to clean. Time for a new year to begin and for me to get out and photograph something other then the dogs.

Snowy Dog Print

Thursday and Friday we finally got some snow here in Southern MA.

More Snow Wishes

According to the weather we'd had 5 feet more snow this time last year. No wonder I'm pining for snow. The bulbs are starting to creep from the ground and it's only February 3rd.

Snow How I Miss You...

it was creepily warm today. You could wander outside with no jacket and just basrely feel a chill. Where's my snow? Where's my ice? While I'm enjoying not having to pay an arm and a leg to heat my house, I'd like some nice fluffy snow for payment of putting up with these short dim days.

Just Snow

The snow is just about gone, and it was almost 60 here a few days ago. The weather's been very wonky for a while now. I can't imagine what summer will be like.

Snowy Hawk

So it finally snowed in MA, well it's still snowing, but yesterday was the tease. It was nice and sunny in the morning so I convinced the dogs to let me take pics of them in the snow, some hot dogs may have been involved. I kept hearing hawk calls but couldn't spot the hawk. Eventually, I found it in some trees behind my yard. I went in and got my crappy telephoto lens and took some pics. The hawk was kind enough to fly to another tree with a better view. My guess is a red-shouldered hawk, but I couldn't get a great angle and I had to leave early to go to work.

Waiting For Snow

This morning was another pitiful dusting of snow. It was gone by the afternoon. If we're going to be freezing and living with horribly short days for 4 months of the year could it at least snow? If it's going to be winter I want my white blanket. I can't snowshoe in mud and when the ground's frozen it hurts to hike. I want snow now so I don't have a summer garden with water restrictions.

An Attempt at Snow

See that light dusting of white on the ground and the rock. That appears to be nature's attempt at snow. Is it bad that I'd prefer at least 1/2" or even 6" so I can get some useful footprints out of it, or at least go snowshoeing?

Snow, already...

Snow before November is not a good sign for the winter to come. I have two big plastic tents in my backyard right now trying to keep the lettuce, peas and one leftover tomato plant alive.

Moose Hill from Tuesday

The snow is very slowly releasing it's grip on the ground. I got there a little late around 8 AM and the ice layer across all the trails was still mostly frozen. next time I will remember to bring my ice grippers. I didn't sink much even though the snow was still 12" deep in a few spots. The crust is now quite thick. The walk out wasn't too bad, but 2 hours later the ice layer had started to melt and made the main trail back quite slick.

The boardwalk is still closed, but you get to walk all the way to it before you find out. I wonder if it's covered with snow, or if the refreezing actually damaged it this winter. It's my favorite section, so it being continually closed is a let down. I'll have to remember next time and wander down to the pond and stream across the street.

It's maple sap harvesting season again. This year there was a trash can being used at one point. I kind of prefer the metal buckets, though there isn't really much of a difference.

This is the same place I captured graceful shadows on the snow a few weeks ago. The snow has since melted in strange places and seems more like the surface of the moon.

I wonder if all the short pine trees will bounce back from spending months stuck to the ground. I did see a number of larger trees snapped in half across teh paths, so maybe being bendy isn't so bad.

The trails all had leaves and branches embedded in them. My guess is the sun warms them up just enough for them to slowly melt down in the snow. The ice cocooning them however was quite nice.

Closeup of nice ice.

More ice.

Near the end of my trek I spotted this curious fellow. I have never seen a spider out in snow before. It was alive and walked away while I was watching. I imagine it isn't very happy about being out right now, but it didn't seem to bothered.

There were plenty of vague footprints to sort through. Most of the prints were obviously people, but I spotted a few deer tracks, possibly coyote, and raccoon as well.

Ice

I went hiking Tuesday morning and after much sliding around (trails have been iced over for a while now) found some things to photograph. Since we haven't had new snow in a while the snow is starting to look a little messy. Fallen leaves and branches litter the trails. As it has been warmer for the last few days items have been melting and refreezing into the trails. leading to ice encased leaves. If I got out earlier I might have seen frost details, but by the time I was out it had melted down a bit. Read More about my hike at Wild into Suburbia.

Snow Shadows

This is from back in January at Moose Hill. I managed to get there early enough to stare at tons of sparkling snow. There were whole fields full of dancing light every time I moved. Of course photographing the sparkling rarely works. You can see a tiny bit in the lower portion of the photo. This led me to watching the shadows. I love the rippling effect in the above photo. I also spotted some raccoon prints and multiple coyote prints the same day.

Daniel Webster - Back in January

Back in January when we were still getting weekly snow storms I drove out to Daniel Webster. I think I posted one photo from that trip then forgot about it. Now that I've moved my daily photo posts (see above) I need to get back to the hiking.

It was quite cold that day and I waited until almost noon to go out. Obviously this makes the pictures not spectacular, but my car can be iffy of snow and I wanted to let the plows clear the roads. I apparently didn't wait long enough as several roads in Marshfield were still covered in packed snow. At Danial Webster the parking lot had just been plowed and a woman and her daughter were shoveling out the entry building. The daughter actually asked if I was a biologist or something since I had snow shoes and had been the only person silly enough to show up. I dislike breaking trail. The main reason being it's exhausting. I prefer a slightly broken trail, so walking back wasn't too bad. The snow was drifting rather impressively however and within an hour my entry prints had been erased in several places. I do wish I had managed to get a photo of the blowing snow, but the angles were off.

I didn't see much in the way of wild life, a few standard winter birds and not much else. There weren't even any deer, but that is likely due to the time of day. The snow was deep enough the boardwalks were almost obscured. I missed go on my standard Secret Trail as I wasn't sure it would be accessible. The normal entrance to it was covered in snowy branches, and walking across the field to find out it was impassible would have been a waste.

The snow had piled up in plenty of strange shapes over weeks of freezing, thawing and wind.

It's amazing how snow can look so much like desert.

random note: I hate the posting interface here and I'm going to have to start doing these in HTML.

Daily Photo - Nose

Another 12-18 inches of snow in the forecast. I wonder where we're going to shovel it.

Daily Photo - So Much Snow

Path at Daniel Webster, I had to turn around. This is the newest 8 inches of snow. I did get to break trail as even at noon no one else had shown up to snowshoe.

Daily Photo - Coon Tracks

From the barn at Moose Hill last Saturday.

Daily Photo - Snow Shadows

See I went outside. This is from Saturday's snowshoeing at Moose Hill.

Daily Photo - Icicle

More snow tonight, while what we have is hanging on quite tenaciously.