Frost flakes

Hmmm... that title sounds a bit like cereal, doesn't it? But it's not. It's more hoar frost, believe it or not! Just when I thought I'd seen (and blogged) every kind there was, there appeared something different last Saturday morning. Of course, all this frost means we've had an awful lot of fog, and I'm getting sooo tired of all the white scenery... white ground, white sky, and often white air. Ugh. When's spring???

Saturday morning, however, the fog cleared early, and it was already sunny when I went out to feed the cats. I couldn't help noticing (and trudging back to the house for the camera) that this frost was very flakey-looking, and it stood out at right angles to whatever it was on.

They were very thin, flat, fragile flakes.

Pretty amazing, huh?

The ground seemed to be covered with these flakes, too, and it was very sparkly!

Everything sparkled!

The trees sparkled, too, although it's a little hard to see in this photo.

In the photo below, I was trying to get a shot of the frosted grass, but I ended up getting a better shot of the flakey ground.

Suddenly, in the midst of my snowy/frosty picture-taking, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a Rainbow in winter! Now that's some contrast!

The railings along the deck steps were quite interesting, too. They were covered solid with the frost flakes.

They certainly made for an unusual texture.

(Click any photo for a bigger view.)

Because all those flakes were so thin and fragile, they didn't last long that morning and were soon melted and/or blown away.

This is just so wrong!

I'm sure many of you remember all the various frost photos I posted last winter. Fog + very cold temps = frost. Normally that occurs during the winter... NOT in the fall when there are still leaves on the trees and bushes. But here ya have it, folks... frost on the lilac LEAVES from yesterday morning:

With snow in the background, no less:

Who'd have thought I'd be doing frost photos again so soon?! At least that clear sky and sunshine made it all go away. No thanks to the still-frigid temps.

Flooff

It was a white world again Saturday morning. I thought, "No, I've taken enough frost photos!" But looking out the window, I could tell it was a very different kind of frost from the spiky stuff I showed you last week. 

It was also very cold out, like about 8°F. I thought, "Okay, I'll take the camera along... and to avoid freezing my fingers off, I'll just take ONE photo, to show the difference in the frost."

You know me better than that, right? I can't take just ONE photo of something beautiful!!  So here y'are, folks... that white world. Click on any photo to enjoy it larger.

This frost was very light, flooffy, and delicate. It seemed to be layered in individual flakes.

Yet it was very thick.

Even the overhang of our roof was decorated with the flakey bits:

This icicle was also covered with it, and I thought it'd make a cool picture. Unfortunately my camera focused on the tree behind it instead (maybe because it was almost too bright out to see the monitor... or because my fingers were so numb I couldn't push the buttons correctly), but I thought it made for an interesting look, anyway:

My favorite photo of the day:

First frost

Right there in the middle of the picture... can you see it?

We had our first frost of the season Saturday morning. It wasn't very heavy and didn't seem to affect my flowers or anything in the garden. That spot in the photo is a little shallow hole out in front of our deck. I guess it's one of those "low lying areas" that the forecasters sometimes predict frost for. ;)

It's been really chilly the past week, with highs in the low 50's, but thankfully it's warming up to the 70's later this week. I like cool weather, but it's been a little too-much-too-soon! Hey, it's still officially 'summer', y'know?! Saturday I mowed that grass... at 60° with a pretty good wind chill. Needless to say, I was bundled up.

From the Magic Window

Here's an update to my last post.  This picture was taken a day after the previous one of the same bit of frost. The weather had started to warm up, and I think the frost was beginning to go away. Is its leaving as mysterious/magical as its coming?

Here's the previous pic, for comparison:

If you look really closely, I believe you can see that the new bits in the first photo are 'in addition' to the frost in the second one, not pieces that have broken off and started moving outward.

Fascinating!

So white

It was an awfully white world yesterday morning. It was very foggy, and the trees were covered in hoar frost once again, so along with the 4 inches of new snow we got Thursday night, everything was white, white, and more white.

I didn't realize there could be so many different types of frost formations. These new ones were kind of globby... like popcorn with teeny spikes.

These were a little harder to photograph, probably mostly because of the lighting. Too much fog still in the air.

The fog hung around all day long. It did leave for a while last night, as I couldn't see any when I went to bed, but it was back again this morning when I got up. When I went out to feed the cats, I noticed the frost looked a bit different again. I considered going back for the camera, but decided I have better things to do with my time today. Use your imagination: onto slightly enlarged popcorn globs, lengthen the teeny spikes a wee bit, blunt their ends, and then give them some itsy-bitsy popcorn globs of their own, keeping the whole spike to about a quarter-inch long. Now you know what they look like. ;)

I've had enough white now. Blue sky is so much better!

Don'tcha just love it when....

.... you're having really COLD weather and your friends send you emails that say "I don't mean to rub it in, but..." and then they proceed to rub it in by telling you how warm it is where they are? And then they even send photos of places where they're enjoying all that warmth... like Disneyland, or Arizona? Yep, that's what I've been getting lately. You know who you are! Ha! 

I'm just kidding! I don't feel "rubbed in" at all... I love getting your emails and photos. Keep 'em coming!!

Anyway, how cold has it been here? Yesterday morning it was this cold:

That was when I took the pic around 9:00 a.m. It was -22° when I got up. Not as bad as they'd predicted, though, which was -26°!

Of course all that cold has left us with plenty of frost again. This was on the inside of the window:

There were also some pretty designs in between the panes of glass:

But really... I got enough of frost-photo-taking last winter, so this doesn't really thrill me. In fact, I'd rather not have any frost to take pics of at all!

Because some of you asked...

I thought I'd share with you the results of my final photo assignment for my camera classes. I sent in these two photos:

About the Courtney one, my "tutor" said:

• "Nice job using the white card to get the good looking color.  This stimulation is a hard one since you have a mixture of colors from the lights; there's cooler light coming threw the window which is blue and there's warmer light coming from a lamp.  The lights makes this image real and stand out; makes it feel like I'm in the room looking at this little girl with a missing tooth smiling back at me.  It's great when you're able to have the viewer make a connection with your images."

(Note that all misspellings, typos, etc., are his. This was sent to me at 11:39 Saturday night, which was unusual, since the others I've gotten had all been during the work week. He must've been working overtime and tired. ;)  His previous correspondences were better written.)

And about the frost one:

• "Great job making the background soft, this really makes the frost/snow flake become the focal point stand out in the image so we can see all the beautiful little details and.  Your color balance is really nice here too; it's cooler so the blue tone really gives the feeling of the scene being cold.  I'm not sure what program you're using on your computer to work on your images, but I would see if you could retouch out a few specs of dirt here and the water streaks on the on the top; it's a bit distracting and it would make the image pop more."

He doesn't like my dirty window! Hahaha! Actually, I hadn't noticed the spots myself (maybe I'm just too used to seeing them? Did YOU notice them?), and I also didn't know we were allowed to edit the images we sent in. However, I had hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button in Picasa on the frost pic, which mainly added contrast (where that blue came from, I don't know, but it's in the unedited photo also). I guess I wasn't "lucky" enough for Picasa to wash my window, though!

He gave me a score of 9 out of 10 points. I was pleased with that! Now all I have left is to leave some feedback on the website, and I'm all done... except for lots of practicing so I don't forget what I learned! Where is the pretty springtime green outdoors to take pics of???

Wow, that's the first class I've taken in 40+ years! I feel like a kid again! A graduate, even! Anybody wanna throw me a graduation party? Okay, maybe not a graduate... it was only one class. But I feel good in having this ol' brain still able to learn new stuff. ;)

Now I need to take some new pics (or at least choose some old ones) for a new blog header, because I'm getting really sick of this old one. Besides, it has the wrong camera on it now!

Golden hour beauty

I know... what am I doing taking more frost photos?! Aargh... enough frost (and COLD) already! But the sun was hitting it just right Sunday evening, and I couldn't resist. Don't they just look like some kind of etched works of art? 

Enjoy! (And click to enlarge for extraordinary beauty!)