We’ve been living under a shroud of Mother Nature’s doing for the past week. No rays of bright sun have been allowed to penetrate the dense layering that has been living between the horizon and blue sky that lies patiently in wait.
Although we have not been blessed with sunshine, we have been able to look upon the magnificence of a land covered in hoar frost — a bland winter canvas transformed into an enchanted, magical wonderland. Maybe this is Mother’s way of saying, “Look, there is beauty in the world. I will leave it here for a while so you can see that beauty is all around you.”
I say enjoy it, study it, look at it up close and notice the intricacies of this layering of ice and snowy frost. Look at an entire landscape from a distance and then focus on a specific tree or branch. Notice how the land seems softer, muted, gentle; rounded edges instead of angles, a hug, a whisper instead of a shout.
Everyday I’ve seen something different and have tried to capture it in the photos below. But I must say that one thing I have not been able replicate with the camera is the whole when I look out a window at a copse of trees in the distance or the forest behind my house. Maybe I’ve realized that these broader scenes weren’t meant to be a true representation of what I see. Maybe I was meant to look with my own eyes, for my own enjoyment. And although the sun is not shining, I think the beauty is accentuated by Mother Nature’s cloaked background.
Even though these next photos were taken “with color,” they truly look like a black and white photograph. Notice the precision of the frost in the second photo.
Individual plants have been entombed by the thick layer of frost, that, as the days went by, got thicker and thicker.
In the early morning, this river birch showed off in a shining house light.
Clusters of oak leaves were coated along their edges. Some looked like geodes, naturally jeweled on the outside, hiding and protecting a center core.
Even more photos…
knots and tangles of tendrils. 
birds will have to wait to get to these seed pods.
I called these two “the twins.” Left-over veins from honey locust leaves, I looked at them from my bed every morning. They never changed. Whether unable or unwilling, they would not break from one another, and shone from the tree with bright precision.
The larger landscape,
I adored the deer in the above photo — part of the darker landscape of branches and leaves, yet still discernible.
When the cloak is finally removed and the blue sky takes over, I will be sad to see this particular landscape fade.
#nature #hoarfrost #mnwinter #frost #whitelandscape
A Gardener's Diary 