My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, spirituality and asking deep questions.
“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Finished a 4-day trip this afternoon. We have 2-3 inches of snow on the ground and temperatures are dropping. It is suppose to get down to 4 degrees tonight. My opinion is that Cancun sounds pretty good right now. Hope everyone has a good week.
“…. the greatest goal we can set for ourselves is to use our painfully short lives in the best possible way.” – Guy Tal
Late Monday afternoon the 30% chance of rain turned into great big beautiful snowflakes, dumping about 2 inches in Fort Collins. So much for weather forecast accuracy. It continued throughout the night then showed us blue skies by noon. In my eyes those big wet snowflakes make it a gorgeous snowfall. By 9:00 am I was excitedly heading to the Environmental Learning Center. I wanted to walk the trails and see the beauty nature was presenting. A wet snow like this one must be felt and experienced up close.
A quiet winter snowfall is quiet for a couple of reasons. First snow does not reflect sound well, it absorbs it so that much of what you would normally hear is muffled. The pores in the snow cover are responsible for the quiet conditions. When acoustic waves travel horizontally above the snow, the increased pressure of the wave momentarily pushes some air into the pores. This air returns to the atmosphere after the wave passes, but some energy has been lost from friction and thermal effects. Over a short distance, this mechanism can significantly reduce the sound energy in the acoustic wave. Secondly, most animals seek shelter when it snows and therefore there are many less bird sounds immediately after a snow storm. I guess you could include a third reason, most people stay inside when it snows.
“… what we are meant to do in life never really stops biting at our heels. Our unfinished selves never stop calling to us.” Joan Chittister
Christmas day was cold out here. The high only reached 15 degrees. The sun came out in the early afternoon, offering glimpse of blue sky, so I drove out east looking for winter scenes. I had a location and scene in mind but it did not offer me what I wanted. With the attitude of not giving up I found these animal tracks interesting. I was not the only one looking at animal tracks as it seemed like there was a hawk or falcon perched in a tree every mile or two. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.
This was taken after the snow storm had passed through the night. Nature has again created a winter scene for us to enjoy. For me the plowed and shoveled snow of our cities is not a pretty sight. These piles of snow with their sand/salt mixture and various liquid anti-icers and de-icers is not pleasing to me. I would rather see the winter scene as nature made it. I’m also not one to enjoy the cold that comes along with natures winter art but the scenes, even the simple ones, bring a smile to my life.