A Frightfully Frigid Winter Interlude

Winter is becoming a bit freaky across the country creating whirlwinds of bone-chilling chaos and disasters in many states.

Here, icicles dangling like dangerous claws, can be likened to imaginary bars of winter's bitter prison blocking healing warmth. 

Pruning will fill up much of February and March if days warm enough to hold pole clippers and saws.

What was I thinking to plant a climbing hydrangea on the beautiful Shagbark Hickory . . . a good trim here and there will open to view some of the striking textured bark. Still, winter does reveal the beauty of this marriage. It is summer when the groovy Shagbark is lost to me. Lichen alters another tree's bark, as noted in the distance, on a sound and solid oak.

Bearing up to the cold, resident buteos choose cherry and oak, standing tall within the north and easterly fields, as their lookout perches. A juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk eyes the frozen solid ground, and the human not too far away within warm barn-studio walls.

The Red-shouldered Hawk feels uncomfortable with my presence and so takes flight towards the forest and river below.

Our more frequently viewed buteo, sighted just a few minutes after the Red-shouldered flew off, prefers the distance of an oak firmly holding along the eastwardly slope. Red-tailed Hawks are always welcome by this community member but not so appreciated by most birds of our habitat.

Red-tailed Hawk 

I am never surprised to see crows, blue jays and even hummers and tree swallows chasing buteos. New Year's Eve day showed me yet another bird or flock of birds in chase of a hawk. Cedar Waxwings are barely visible in the top tier of the oak the Red-tailed Hawk is also occupying.

A closer look above and their shapes become perceptible but not their mood for only moments after this shot, and too quick for my capture, about twenty or so waxwings were in hot pursuit of the Red-tailed Hawk.

Soon, after the chase, the Cedar Waxwings began doing what waxwings are most often seen in pursuit of . . .  harvesting and gulping down little crabapples. I did not know they had such pluck to chase a hawk away.

I am shooting through a glass pane and still cannot escape the watchful wary eye of at least one of the waxwings. 

The crabapples are delicious and nutritious treats . . . with or without snow cream. 

Another winter surprise is the sighting of a Carolina Wren . . . I had no idea they overwinter here and have been told, by a serious ornithologist, that if it gets too cold the wrens will just die, for they will not think to fly further south. This little fellow already made it through the minus 13 F night a bit ago. It is about 4 degrees Fahrenheit right now, as I write, and I do wonder how this Carolina Wren is keeping warm. I hope homeless folks too are able to find safe shelters in order to stay warm throughout this chilling winter spell. 

Mysterious Misty May Monday Walkabout

Mist makes my world dreamy . . . walking around the north field looking up towards the middle gardens and house . . . everything is cloaked in a cool veil. The White and Gray Birch mirror the white of the old farmhouse and fading Viburnums.

The curtain of mist softens everything in the landscape so that the bodies of Black Cherry and White Birch appear in dialogue. I know this is a stretch but these are my fantasy white and black stallions. I should love to have horses.

Oak between White Birch calling out to one another.

Ghostly White Birch between Oak and Black Cherry . . . all stately stand. Beneath the earth their tentacles of roots connect and communicate. Above their limbs and branches sway, breathe and exhale. Their trunks or bodies are like other worldly beings. 

My Metasequoia (Dawn Redwood) and Apple trees spread their delicious deciduous canopies within the thick air. Dark trunks are like lines of charcoal chalk drawings in the landscape, while the spectral farmhouse sits in the distance longingly looking out beyond.

Metasequoia reaching out towards Black Cherry.

A surprise . . . within the mist and the Metasequoia . . .  I eye a beautiful Rose-breasted Grosbeak perched near the top. The leaves cut through the light with their unique form. 

Beads of mist clinging to the newly fanned out leaves. The Dawn Redwood is also known as  'water fir'.

The tiny fingered opposite leaves seem magical, when they reappear each year.

Moving up into the middle garden looking back through my funky English Hawthorn and Japanese Maple framing yet another shapely view of our native Black Cherry. 

Peonies dwarfed before Giant Rock Maples.

Shrubberies and Shagbark Hickory wearing Climbing Hydrangea all enjoying the moist canopy of air.

Gray Birch, Shrubberies and Rock Maples . . . now we are on the south side of the house.

Apples and Gray Birches beckon as we go down towards the Blueberry field. Iris and Daylilies stretch and soon will show their blooms.

Gray Birches and Tree Swallows. It must be refreshing to fly through the droplet filled air.

Apples as seen from the south field. Wildflowers are bathed in the moisture.

Later up in the front garden delicate forget-me-nots wearing water spheres. 

Pink Lily-of-the-Valley coated in misty dew.

Unfurling Hostas

Lupine leaves wear the jewel-like drops very well. There is a lovely sense of mystery walking about the gardens in this misty shroud. I love how the feeling is so altered from a bright sunny day. The trees all seem to be engaged in dialogue and stand out more sculpture like in the landscape. The coolness feels good on  my skin and must be delightful to trunks, limbs and leaves. Later the sun breaks through and all is clear and dry again. I am thankful for this brief dewy interlude.

South Fields Panoramic Sans Snow About to Grow... Carey and Walnut Hill Rolling Still

It may appear nothing much is happening here, from a distance all seems still and bare.

Naked and cold the mighty sculpted structured trees and shrubberies hold their form, but for the winter's and gardener's pruning saws and clippers. Upon closer observation there is much to notice at tips of branch and spiraling down them. A fullness is swelling within tiny buds.

Deep in the earth roots are tingling sending signals and life fluids through veins hidden within crusty bark, flowing up into thinner limb and branchlet, refined, renewed life force enters sleeping buds. The outer protective calyx, sepal armor splits at neatly formed seams a whorl gives way revealing vulnerable voluptuous petals. The morphology has begun anew. Thousands and millions of flowers and leaf are expanding and will unfurl in their time transforming this landscape into a lush paradise of vibrant colors, fragrances and clever mechanisms for reinventing themselves.

This is true in those plant forms I love and those I greatly dislike. It is much easier in ways physical to paint on my canvases ... to move the paint with palette knife or brush. Here on this living canvas of land there are invasive pernicious plants, I must not let conquer the world I have helped to create ... so the battle is on. I cannot see it any other way... bitter sweet is just that... yummy berries high in vitamin C for birds but certain death in time to trees and shrubs it tangles with. Shumach and briars too would steal the show... so I must a weed-whacking go, when I should wish to lightly stroll within a garden... dividing, planting, weeding, staking, harvesting and simply being with nature. To maintain... manipulate... control... battle... all words and actions I should avoid in dealing with other life forms, but to simply let it all be in the wild here, would mean an end to a landscape and habitat I depend on, love and share.