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Tag Archives: winter
WordPress photo challenge: Seasons
Here in lower Michigan we’ve been confused by the seasons. It’s supposed to be cold and snowy in February. In fact this time last year we had wind, drifts of snow, and frigid below zero temperatures.
So you can imagine our joy at the temperatures this February. And the lack of snow. Sure there are piles of it in the shadowy woods or where city trucks dump their street slush. But mostly, around here, it feels as though we dodged the winter bullet.
Temperatures in the 40’s F (4.44 C) had people running around town like it was the middle of summer. Out at the park I actually stalked a runner for this photo challenge.
I had just finished my own 3.5 mile walk/run, and was climbing into my car for the ride home when I spotted him starting out. I loved that he was wearing shorts in February and that his shirt was bright green. So I shoved the car into gear and raced to a parking lot one mile down the road, where I leaped out and trotted a ways up the path, positioning myself on a curve, pretending to take pictures of the dried up winter lake, when in fact what I wanted was him running in shorts in February in Michigan.
Warm run in February.
To show you that ‘seasons’ can’t always be predicted, and staying flexible is always important.
You can see other interpretations of this challenge at the original post. Or visit a few of my favorites here, here and here.
What season is it at your house? Please share with us, especially if it’s tropical. Because here in Michigan we know for sure that this little respite will be brief and winter will be back with a vengeance soon. So we’ll live vicariously through your photos until June or so when we can enjoy our own summer sun.
Just ignore that pile of snow.
Creative types
Fun stuff.
Almost two weeks ago I showed you all the things people were doing in the middle of a Michigan winter out at my favorite park. And I mentioned that there were also a number of artists painting there that day, so many that I figured they deserved their own post.
And now two weeks have passed in a flash.
So before more time slips through my fingers, let me show some very talented people at work capturing their vision of my favorite park. They were spread out near the nature center, some along the bike/running path…
Painters and runners share space.
…some tucked further into the woods.
Painting in the woods.
Most were focused on parts of the lake, fringed with cattails and surrounded by bare trees against the brilliant blue sky.
There’s beauty everywhere.
It was cold that day, and they were painting while dressed in heavy coats or hunting gear, scarfs, gloves, hats.
Staying warm with art.
But the cold certainly didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. Their work was beautiful. I wanted to stop and talk to each of them about what they were doing, but they seemed very intense. So I admired from afar.
Something else I admired from afar was this guy. Or girl.
Our national bird.
This photo is cropped 3 times, the bald eagle was sitting in the top of a heron rookery far out in the middle of a lake. I’ve never seen one this far south, and I wouldn’t have seen this one if he or she hadn’t flown in with a huge stick while I was across the street watching artists. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. There was a fringe of trees between us, and I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. So I ran back to the nature boardwalk and looked through my long lens.
I still couldn’t believe it.
I stayed a long time watching the eagle watch all of us. And if it weren’t for the cold I might be there still. I felt privileged to have witnessed the low flight of this bird, and its sweep up to the top of that tree. Eagles are very special in our family and I’m so glad to have seen this one. Another photographer said a pair of them was around that lake all last summer, though I never saw or heard anything about eagles being there. I’ll keep a sharper eye out this summer and keep you posted.
An incredible day captured.
Meanwhile…the artists were packing up and headed home to warm up and reminisce about their lovely day at the park. I decided I would too.
Maybe someday I’ll try oil painting. I think it would be fun, but probably frustrating, to capture my version of things I see. If I give it a shot you guys will be the first to know. And I hope I see the artists and my bald eagle out at the park again this spring and summer. I’ll let you know about that too.
Waiting and watching.
Cee’s black and white photo challenge: Weather
It’s a long time till summer picnics.
The weather lately has been vacillating between cold snow and warm rain. Sometimes it all collides and we get this.
The same but different
A lonely day at the lake.
Twenty-eight degrees F (-2.22 C) here, and a slight frozen mist hanging in the air; seems perfect to go for a nature walk around a lake. So I drove out to my favorite park again. You know, the one that was full of activity and bright sunshine the last time I was there.
Not so much sun or activity today. It felt melancholy, lonely, damp. Few people were out, though there were more than I expected at the back of the park on the far side of the lake.
Someone is watching me.
And there were birds. As I took my first step on the nature path I could already hear the chickadees calling, and soon they were circling my head. They expect a treat. I left them a few seeds on the railing of the first bridge and moved along. It was too cold to stand still, arm outstretched to feed them individually.
Incoming!
I was thinking about why I was lugging my camera. Before I left the house I debated not bringing it, considered the advantages of taking a walk in nature without it. But then I realized if I did that there would be something amazing and I’d regret not having it.
What you lookin at lady?
So early in the walk, with fingers already getting cold, I thought about all the pictures I already had, filed away in my archives. Pictures of this park, these birds, most under better light and conditions than I was facing today. So why was I still watching for something interesting?
Anything good up here?
People have asked me….”what do you do with all those photos?” I don’t necessarily do anything with them, except share a few of them here with you, or with family. If I’m at a family event I might turn the best of them into a book for my siblings to remember our time together. But only a few of them ever end up in anything I share.
Most of the time I just flip through them and remember.
Because, you see, I can remember what it felt like to stand where I stood when I took almost every one. The way the light was, the temperature of the air, unique smells and sounds, why I was out there, the shots I missed when I got the one I’m staring at now. The photos in my archives take me right back to the adventures I experienced when I took them.
OK, we can share.
I think it’s probably a lot like playing music. It’s more fun to be the player than the listener. Perhaps it’s more fun being the photographer than the one looking at the results. For me, it’s all about the hunt; sometimes for something specific that I have in mind, but more often the fun of finding an opportunity to catch something surprising or pretty, or arty or just cool.
Eastern bluebird scout
So on today’s cold walk along the mist shrouded lake I didn’t find lots of great photos, but I found enough to make me smile. And really that’s enough to make cold feet and tingly fingers worthwhile.
Peek-a-boo
Even if no one else ever sees the majority of them.
Serenity
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Katie here. Mama says I can say Happy Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends, which includes every one of you! Here in the United States February 14 is a day that people give each other cards and chocolates and flowers and other mushy stuff to show their love. I don’t know if those of you outside the United States have a similar holiday, but if you do I’d like to read about it!
My calendar girl look.
In fact, I’d like to know what each of you do for Valentine’s Day no matter where you live because here at my house no one is getting me anything! I think that’s unjust, especially since I’m a princess. What’s the point of being a princess anyway if gifts are not regularly bestowed on me? Maybe in comments you can give mama some good ideas about how she should be celebrating me on this special day.
Meanwhile I am sending my love to my boyfriend Reilly the Cowspot Dog. I wanted to send him something special but I couldn’t figure out anything special enough for my best boy. I hope he’s OK with just having my undying love. I think we’re star crossed doggies, Mr. Reilly and I, as we’ve never met but we will someday!
So everybody, I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day. I know I will have a great day even if I don’t get any presents, because I’ll spend it with my mama and daddy.
Don’t tell them I said so, but I don’t really need anything else but them.
Mama makes me look silly!
Wordless Wednesday
Finally winter.
Active winter
Sunday afternoon at the heron rookery.
My folks moved to Alabama when I was working in the Upper Peninsula, so I stayed behind in Michigan. I’d visit them and sometimes meet their friends. As they introduced me to people who had lived their entire lives in the South the response was almost universally horror stricken. “You live in MICHIGAN? Doesn’t it get awfully cold there? And how do you handle all that snow??”
Well, yes it does get cold here, and it snows too. Sometimes a lot. But seriously, we don’t sit in our homes and mope — we get out into the fresh air and enjoy it. It’s the only way to get through the winter, to not let it get us down. Because yes it does get old.
But not this year, at least not here. Not yet.
I was out at my favorite park on Sunday and was amazed at all the activity. though I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was chilly and clouds were chasing the sun, but it was a beautiful day. So I thought I’d show you what people in Michigan do on a winter weekend. There was hardly any snow on the ground, and people didn’t want to waste a chance to enjoy some time outside.
Nice day for a long run.
This particular park is centered on a very large lake. There’s an eight mile (12.8k) bike/walk/run paved path around the lake, and many other miles of paths through the hills and fields including nature paths through the woods.
It’s incredibly beautiful no matter the season.
People were out doing everything you could imagine. Aside from the expected walking and running, it’s a perfect place for well socialized dogs to take their humans for an afternoon walk.
Let’s get going!
And the fishing is great too, no matter the season. Lots and lots of fisher people stand on the banks of the lake and catch their supper, as evidenced by the lures tangled in the high branches of a tree above the bike path.
Remnants from last summer.
But this time of year it’s all about ice fishing. I can’t say I understand that sport, but I fully support a person’s right to sit out on the cold lake staring at a hole in the ice waiting for a fish to strike. It’s gotta be fun for some people. Just not me.
It’s a chilly sport.
On this Sunday the weather was so warm that people were out riding their bikes…
Out for a spin.
…and even inline skating.
Faster than running, more exercise than biking.
It felt like spring, and I’m sure we all wish that winter was over. Of course we know it’s not — snow and cold is forecast for later this week. If the snow arrives you might not want to be out on skates or your bike, but you can still wander the nature trails and feed the birds.
Feeding the birds.
Yes there are signs out not to feed the wildlife, but enough people hold sunflower seeds out for the little birds that they now follow nature walkers around asking for a handout. It’s a special feeling to have a wild bird flit to your finger for an instant. Especially for young kids, and those of us still young at heart.
He weighs nothing at all.
Sunday there was also a large group of artists at the park, each painting their vision of the paradise that is this park. That was so special it’s going to have to go into it’s own blog. Stay tuned.
So that’s what people will do on a nice winter day at a beautiful public park way up here in Michigan. The next semi-sunny day you have during the rest of this winter head out to a park near you. I guarantee you’ll see something interesting and fun and maybe even beautiful.
Regardless of whether or not it’s cold or there is snow on the ground.
Running in shorts. In February in Michigan.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Lines and Angles
Walk in the woods
Camouflaged Katie
An advantage of being retired is that I can go for a walk in the middle of a weekday and I don’t have to fit it into my lunch hour. Katie enjoys my freedom too because she gets to go along. Yesterday though it was cold and windy we had sun, something we’ve all been missing, so Katie and I headed out to a recreation area where we could walk among tall trees where the wind was less bitter. (Click on any photo to see it larger and with more detail.)
No one else was out there. Poor working fools.
We walked a trail we’ve traveled often, though it’s different each time we visit. On this trip we had bright blue skies, brilliant white snow and enough breeze to make the trees creak. Other than the trees it was quiet.
Lots of coming and going.
Plenty of animals had been out since Thursday afternoon’s light snow. The tracks I found most interesting were those of what might have been a dog except there were no corresponding human prints. Sometimes the ‘dog’ tracks were headed the same way we were, and other sections of the trail showed him headed the other way. His prints were about half again as big as Katie’s.
Katie’s print on the right, next to the ‘dog’ print.
Sometimes his prints intersected those of a rabbit. Or smaller things like mice or moles.
Intersection
We also ran across smaller tracks, with a walking pattern that was more linear…more like I imagine a cat might make.
Cat walk?
All of this evidence of another world made me realize these woods were home to a community that we hardly ever see. After all the people go home these forest dwellers come out and search for food. There’s a whole world right here among the tall trees that we never notice as we walk our dogs, that we’d never notice if it weren’t for the thin coating of fresh snow.
I wondered where all those animals were napping while we were walking and began to wonder if the ‘wolf’ (as I’d begun to think of the one who made the ‘dog’ tracks) was watching us as we moved through his forest. I wondered if the rabbit got away, and what the deer had found to eat. I marveled at all the tiny tracks, picturing little rodents scurrying, always across the path, from one little tunnel to another, never down the trail like the larger deer and rabbits walked.
What’s up there mama?
The trees creaked, the sun shone, Katie ran ahead and then urged me to move along faster. We had a great time, she and I. And as we left I thanked the animals for sharing their home with us.
Another great day of retirement.
We’re just visiting.
Change Is Hard 