Skywatch Friday

Continuing the chronicles of the freezing rain, my walk to work took a lot longer than usual.

This is white pine needles and cones, covered with ice.

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Baby Pine Cones

I have been keeping an eye on the baby pine cones. Not much has changed in the last couple of months, but I like the comparison with the rain drops.

 

Raindrops

One of those rains when the drops 

 cling, rather than fall.

 

Baby Pine Cones

For a couple of years now, I have been attracted by the flowers of the pine tree,

 but I have never paid attention to what came next.

The obvious answer is baby pine cones, 

 but I was so surprised at how cute they are.

 Next year, they will look like this

 

Macro Flowers Saturday

The pine trees are preparing their cones for next year.

 I am not sure of the timing of the process. Maybe I will remember to pay attention to it this year.

 For more photos of flowers around the world, click the icon on the right.

 

Skywatch Friday

We have been having snow all week.

I think we have had more snow this week than in the whole rest of the month.

Pine

Frost coated the pine needles and cones early in the morning.

But later in the day,

the frost was gone.

Skywatch Friday

These are the flowers of the castor bean plant. The seeds can be poisonous, but the plant itself is unique.

This is one of the goldenrod family. I have not sorted them out in my head yet, and simply call all of them by the generic name.

Walk in the Dog Park

Annie is showing what the surface was like. Not too bad, if you walk slowly, when you only have two legs. I saw a man with two ski poles, and all I could think was "I want one!!"

The angle of the sun was making some beautiful shadows!

A tree fell during the winter, and the fungus is no longer parallel to the ground.

Jake, after his first burst of energy had worn off.

Another tree that fell, but this one was over a path, so they have used a chainsaw to cut it into more manageable sections. I like the way you can see the way the sap only travels in the outer rings of the tree. Before freezing in the cold weather.

Birch catkins.