Blowing snow has erased the rest of the world and left only this row of trees along my fenceline.
The first winter storm of the season brought a foot of heavy, wet snow.
Its weight bent my lilacs to the ground.
Color disappears in a snow storm and the world turns to black and white...mostly white.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.
~ Emerson
In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.
Christina Rossetti
In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.
Christina Rossetti
A Hairy Woodpecker female. Heavy snow creates desperate times for the birds.
Their survival may depend on the kindness of people.
I always put out extra suet and seed
so they won't run out of food while I'm at work.
The Downey Woodpecker female is similar in color but smaller
than the Hairy Woodpecker.
Her beak is much shorter than that of the Hairy Woodpecker
A tiny Junco.
A finch huddles against the chill wind.
