Frosty Mornings

 

Recently we have had pretty chilly nights and frosty mornings. The frost is painting its beautiful pictures in the garden, decorating the leaves of some plants.

There was even some frost on my cow and when the sun hit it, it started to"steam". Oh those beautiful surprises!

Just a couple days before, I had gathered the fallen leaves of the Japanese Maple in my front garden and brought them to the back to mulch some parts in the garden there. Those leaves had beautiful icy edges and when backlit by the morning sun, started to glow. I was in photographer's heaven!

Even a single leaf on the bare ground looked amazing.

Nature's art...

And now to the dinner part for Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date - with the colder weather we're eating more hearty food. Last week I made Italian sausage with penne, peppers and broccoli. I've really fallen in love with sweet Italian sausage, mainly because of the fennel in it. It gives it such a great flavor.

Many people eat soup in the colder season, but somehow I have never found my love for it. Sometimes I make soup, but it certainly is not a favorite. What about you? Are you cooking a lot of soup in the winter?

Frost in Yellowstone

 

It feels so good to be back at Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date where this week's prompt is "frosty". I immediately had to think of our very first visit to Yellowstone National Park in the fall of 2002. Only a couple days in we experienced the first frost there at the very beginning of October.

While cold, it was also very beautiful. My photographer's heart was in heaven. All of these photos were still made with film and scanned several years later.

Yellowstone is a place that takes your breath away, but with this "sugar frosting" covering the ground it becomes downright magical.

Even the bison had frosting - but they couldn't care less.

In some places we still saw the beautiful colors of autumn.

The following three photos were taken at one of my favorite locations - it's almost fairylike with those whispering veils of fog.

The reflections were stunning.

One day I would like to experience Yellowstone in the winter...

Two weeks ago, after we got a new roof, we finally got solar panels. Last week they were inspected by the city and then by the utility company. Everything from start to finish went smoothly. We worked only with local companies and it was such a good experience. The first thing I did when the panels started producing, was to bake bread (I have baked a lot more since then!). Funny enough, that same day the solar guy came by to deliver a couple tools for the Geek, and he immediately asked me whether I was baking bread because it was smelling so good. I love the scent of freshly baked bread.

Otherwise I was a bit lazier when it came to making dinner and made one of my "lazy cook" meals, with the help of Trader Joe's:

I simply cooked some rice, sauteed zucchini and eggplant and then cooked the chicken with the teriyaki sauce. It was better than I expected and certainly will be repeated.

Chilly Nights, Frosty Mornings

We have had some gorgeous winter days here, with clear and sunny days that bring chilly nights and frosty mornings. Temperatures dip into the twenties during the night which is something we don't experience too often in our area (yes, we're quite lucky). When we get frost alerts, we usually cover our citrus trees because they don't like these low temperatures, but almost everything else will do just fine.

I went out into my garden one of these mornings to take some photos of the frost. It was rather lovely. The fence posts displayed ice crystals and even my little ceramic bird looked cold.

The plants that are around for winter were stunning with their frosty coats. The red and yellow gaillardia displayed the frost gracefully.

There were beautiful leaves that were even more gorgeous with their frozen dress.

The pineapple sage nodded gently even though it didn't take the cold too well.

There were still some seed heads of the purple coneflower standing. They were absolutely stunning this morning - I was so happy I was able to catch this with my macro.

Please stay warm, everybody!

Frosty Morning With A Touch of Autumn

We have had some pretty frosty mornings recently - remember, we are totally spoiled Californians who complain when temperatures drop below 50 F. However, this was real frost; 27 F! Okay, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the East Coast, don't laugh (not to mention Alaska and Canada)!!! Since we also have sunny days, the morning show right after sunrise is quite spectacular.

There is a park right next to Kaefer's high school, and after I had dropped her off this morning, I stopped to take a few photos. There had been more frost on Monday, but this was still very nice and I enjoyed my little photo shoot - until my fingers became too cold.

Some kids were on their way to school - middle schoolers, since Kaefer's old middle school is to the other side of the park. There were joggers and dog walkers - this park also has a fenced-in dog park which is very popular.

I loved the light of the early morning sun - even though it was cold, the light gave the impression of warmth. It was almost magical; I love the contrast between the frost and the warm orange shades.

I couldn't resist taking pictures of the shadows - my kind of selfie! The leaves on the ground were pretty as well, with some of them featuring fine frost at their edge.

The magic finally disappeared with the steadily rising sun who poured the light onto the park. The glow of the frost was no longer clearly visible - but it was still very beautiful. I was glad that I had stopped and could witness this short morning magic.

Winter Solstice

Since today is the shortest day of the year, I thought I just post a few snow and frosty pictures - all of them taken in recent years either in Yosemite National Park or back in Germany.

It's sunny and mild here - no sign of winter at all. Not a single rain cloud in the sky... We're still waiting for the rain. Everything is so dry here.

Icy in August

No, this is not an error.

And yes, we still have summer over here...

Inspiration Avenue's challenge this week is "Icy".

So I went through my archives... and came up with these photos taken during our last winter's trip to the American Southwest. We were in Canyonlands National Park and took an early morning walk to Mesa Arch. It was freakin' cold, but the frozen plants looked beautiful in the morning light, not quite sunny yet.

Usually we associate the red rock country with heat and a glaring sun. Most times I visited this area was in the winter - it is so much less crowded then and you can really enjoy the stunning beauty of this unique landscape. Plus you get the delight that the frost brings...

I hope to return to red rock country this winter.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

When I woke up yesterday morning and looked outside, I saw this:

We had had one of the coldest nights - remember, this is California, so this is not our typical weather, even in winter. There are only a few days when the frost is as beautiful as this morning and of course, I had to take pictures.

This is what it looked like on the deck

I guess you know what this is

I had forgotten about the hook on the table.

The flowers were cold, too:

Then I took a picture of this:

which is completely unexciting. So I started playing with my lens...

...and remembered the lensbaby. It was fun to play around with THAT one.

There is a big tub filled with water in our yard. Of course there was a sheet of ice on the surface. The Geek and Kaefer started to play around with that, lifting out a few sheets since they couldn't take the whole thing.

They had interesting patterns

One looked like a bird (a woodpecker?)

And these are Kaefer's pajamas seen through one of the ice-sheets.

Makes a nice abstract, doesn't it?