Neat Ferns

Behold! 
The Cinnamon Fern!

I get excited when I see these guys as they are large and really stand out in the spring. So far in the past 28 years I've only found 3 places on our land where they come up. They like to grow near a wet area. Last year was so dry that I don't recall them coming up near our creek bottom. Or I missed this plant?

I just love how a fern comes up in a tight curl.
 

Close up of the same fern curl as above.
I've heard of people who look for these in the forest and collect the not so hairy curls to eat. They call them Fiddleheads.

I have not tried it as I'm still in the learning stage about fern plants. Plus there are not enough of these in my forest to harvest and eat.

Close up of the leaves inside the curling head of the fern. Ferns fascinate me as they have such symmetry to their leaves!

More Cinnamon Ferns found at
Duck Egg County Park
on 4 24

I found these on a south facing hillside
high above the water
but in a moist area.

The brown 'stuff' is supposed to 
be spores according to 
information on these ferns.

Another fern that I am very familiar with is the Maidenhair Fern. They are my favorite fern in the forest.

This group emerging from the forest floor 
looks like they are literally

dancing.

Maidenhair Fern, come up red
and turn green.
They spread out like a beautiful spiral
after they mature.

A mature Maidenhair Fern:

There are other ferns, but I don't know enough about them 

--> Yet <-- 

to put a name to them. But I do enjoy finding their beautiful curls in the spring and admire them through out the year.

Even in winter they add a bit of interest to the forest
Photo from the winter of 2011:

Chores are done! Yard is mowed!
And it look like I can go out again today and explore.

Who knows what we will find?

Vrede

 Vrede: Dutch word for Peace, Tranquility.

I learn a lot from my Flickr photo Friends. Viewing Europe and other countries through the eyes of other people is always an incredible experience.

Finding peace and tranquility can be so hard during this time of the year for so many. I think folks need to slow up and catch their breath a bit. Easier for me to say now that I am not traveling each day to an office or other job.

More colors in December? How's this?

Red Dragon Sedum with melting snowflakes on it yesterday.

Snow caught in the Hen and Chicks plant next to the house.

Snowflake caught on a Hen and Chick next to the house. 

Christmas Eve Fog

Christmas Day Fog in our pasture ~ not colorful, but the fog did have a beauty to it!

And for some down time entertainment, I sort of made an attempt at a stop motion film. It is all of 5 seconds long. It did take me about a half hour to photograph and move the pieces carefully.

I did get out for a short walk with Charlie. We walked part of the neighbor's creek and I was able to check the fence. The mules can't get back there which is a good thing. I have a lot of repairs to do in the next couple of months.

The snow melted yesterday as the temps rose and it will melt more on Friday as the temps are supposed to be nearly 40 degrees!

Hubby has made some slight improvements. He is cranky and bossy now, so I say...he will recover.

I think I will go search for some Vrede.

Unplugged

My day started out with a pre dawn hike with Charlie to the ridge. I guess it really was just a walk as we weren't in much of a hurry. Charlie sniffed around and I walked across the crop land hoping for a colorful and blazing sunrise.

Well that didn't happen, but listening to the birds and watching the deer run across the unplowed land was just fine.

We went by the little tree and just watched for quite a while.

I was pretty grumpy and felt ornery and tired so I thought a walk would do me good. I wanted to cancel my gym class but decided to do it anyway. I had to get groceries in town, so I may as well suffer through a class.

I left my phone at home and was surprised at how I didn't miss it at all. No little dings letting me know that there was news, or email, or whatever.

CF put me in a good mood as did the sunshine. Between CF class and Mobility, I took off on a jog/run. Last week we had a run/jog WOD which I enjoyed immensely. I hadn't jogged in two years and I found my rhythm as if it had never left.

After lunch Charlie and I went looking for leeks in the woods and we found some above the creek. Yum! Looks like forest food is coming up! I picked some newly emerged nettles for tea and greens for supper.

Before heading back to the house, I sat on a mossy log and listened to the creek. In the past two years, it has been so dry here that this part of the creek was nearly dry and silent. I watched water bugs and listened to the creek music. 

10 second video of creek sounds and a woodpecker marking his/her territory.

Things are still without color mostly in the woods, but with this warm weather the plants will get a jump start.

Late afternoon I found my phone and discovered texts and emails. One was from our grand daughter Ariel. She is coming to visit us on her own, was that okay?

Another was from Olive. She wanted me to meet the new addition to her family. Gertrude or Gerti. She had Monday and Tuesday off, could we get together?

Being unplugged is nice, except when you miss something! I took care of the messages and brought the skid steer out of the shed and parked it next to the house running...

I told hubby that he needed to clean up the gravel pile that Frank had left and fill in the dip in the driveway as his granddaughter was coming to see him for his birthday. 

Wow! He got out! 
I'll be washing his skid steer today and making him strawberry shortcake for his birthday. I need to run to town to get Almond Milk for Ariel with a couple of other foods for her special diet needs.

I hope we get to meet Gerti too! Olive texted that she thought Gerti and Charlie would get along just great. So I am assuming she has a new dog!

Guess I'll plug back in.

At least I got rid of the Grumpies....

Out and about

Charlie and I went for a nice long hike on Saturday. I took my converted Infrared Camera but took the filters off from it.

I thought it would be interesting to see how it photographed without the nm spectrum filters on it. I used the snow to get a white balance. I like how the snow is white and the shadows are cool while the trees, bark, and foliage has a slight red tint to it.

That said, the lighting was different too. The camera was able to take in much more light than any normal camera.

Parts of the creek were frozen. These little strange holes were in the ice. I have noticed them several times in parts of the creek. I looked up Ice Stars and got a lot of different information about them. I know they appear in the creek after rain/snow/freeze/and more rain and snow and freezing. I always assumed it was because this part of the creek had water flowing up from tiny springs below.

These little ice stars only form in this section of the creek. Odd but interesting!

The water flows pretty easily a bit further downstream as more tiny springs add to the small creek.

I enjoyed just walking along and looking at the shadows on the snow and the reflections on the water. The wild life hadn't been moving across the area much and most of the snow was still pretty smooth.

I imagine on Sunday, that will change and the wildlife will be out feeding before the next weather system moves in Sunday night.

We are to get up to an inch of rain Sunday night and Monday. Heavy rain on top of the snow and ice we have will create some flash flooding and a hard run off of melting snow.

Thankfully, I don't have to go anywhere and I can hike down to the creek to watch the run off.

Charlie enjoyed our Saturday hike.

Blind shooting!

This is what my cool weather 'gear' looks like. I have over the glasses snow goggles which really have been so helpful protecting my eyes against the white glare of the snow.

Unfortunately on a hard long hike, eventually my glasses fog up inside. This is caused by me pulling the goggles up to peer through the camera viewfinder and then settling the goggles back down.

Since I can't see distance well anyway, but can tell where I am putting my feet, I took my glasses off on Sunday morning and stuffed them in a case in my backpack. 

I had to take the battery out of my Olympus camera and put it in my mitten to keep it warm enough to hold a charge. My small camera pocket which is water proof was stuck in my inner breast pocket.

It was convenient to use, pull out, use Auto Focus/Snow Scene and squint to see a blurry landscape and press the button. 

View of a row of pines on the ridge top.

This is the snowmobile trail where it cuts through the neighbor's land and drops through the woods into a steep valley.

The light was beyond enchanting. The sun is so low in the sky that everything had an eerie glow to it. Add the ice/snow coating and everything also glistened.

As I went deeper and deeper into the valley, it got significantly colder. I navigated along the creek towards my goal of the Big Spring. When there is a sudden cold spell, the Big Spring will produce some of the most fascinating frost on the mossy rocks that are in the spring. The warm water from the spring [something like 45 degrees F] causes a steam affect when the warm air above meets the frigid air.

Sunny side of the valley along
the creek.

Shaded side of the valley along the creek.

I find it interesting that I took these two shots only minutes apart, yet the camera read the white balance so differently in the bright sunlight vs. the cool shade. Or...my yellowed cataract eyes just can't really see what the true colors are. I did try and run this through a simple program that I could 'click' on the white part of the snow and 'get' the proper white balance. 

And the difference in temperature from one side of the valley to the other was about 5 degrees and noticeably much colder.

The going was very difficult because the long tall weeds, brush, and trees were all bent over. I had to duck, weave, and push through places I didn't normally walk to follow the creek.

Getting to the Big Spring on a good day is quite the effort. Getting to in this terrain was a bit more difficult. However, I finally made it.

The Big Spring

I was facing the sunny side of the valley while taking this shot. I don't know if you can see it or not, but there is a slight fog above the water towards the middle of the photo above --- near the bent over trees.
Normally I can walk in under those trees and walk along the edge of the spring. 

There was no good way back out so I had to backtrack when I turned around to go home. I'd used up my allotted time away from the house and needed to get back.

Going home along the creek was an adventure on its own as all the usual trails up the valley were blocked by snowy foliage, bent limbs, and in some cases tree tops that had come down because of the heavy snow/ice.

I found one of my routes blocked by an oak tree top so I had to do some creek leaping to get around it. Finally I decided to brush bust and follow a faint deer trail up the valley wall.

The light was so amazing at times I just stood and looked at it. Even with no glasses and poor vision, the colors and light was incredible.

I got into the open meadow and headed on home.

My tracks across the Meadow.

I was really surprised at how well my little point and shoot
camera did and how well I sort of
was able to compose things even without
my glasses. Mother Nature

did the work. I just tried to 
record some of it.

I do truly love snow and winter. I am sometimes torn between snowshoeing, hiking, or cross country skiing. Generally I will pick the snow shoes as they do not limit where I can go. 

We are supposed to get a storm starting Wednesday evening, so I will have plenty of snow to enjoy. The roads and the winds will get nasty.

But we have food, shelter, and a full tank of LP. 

I'll just squint through my goggles and enjoy it.