Freezing rain and snow

Freezing rain then some sticky snow put a heavy load on the trees today. This pine is bent right over. It seems like the pine trees that grew over a foot last summer are still standing upright but those that didn't do as well for some reason are bent over like this one. I suspect that the ones that had a bigger growth spurt didn't catch the snow as well since their needles and branches are more spaced out. Hopefully these bent over trees spring back once the snow is gone.

A snowy evening

I went for a walk to the trees this evening to enjoy the fresh powdery snow that has fallen over the past few days. There is now about a foot of snow on the ground, enough to make breaking trail a bit of an effort.

The above picture of the eastern side of the berm was taken 40 minutes after sunset. Notice that the reflected city lights make the northern sky relatively quite bright. I really appreciate the advanced low light mode of my new camera in these conditions. It can capture the peaceful feeling of a snowy winter's evening which under normal camera settings looks quite gloomy.

Winter Snow

The field has put on its blanket of snow over Christmas and we have had some bone chilling nights lately, but with the snow comes a bit of cheeriness as it makes the evening quite a bit brighter. The days are only about 10 minutes longer than they were at the solstice but with the light reflected off the snow it feels like night comes on about a half hour later than before.