On a winter day

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.
~Hal Borland

Ice "fossils"

When I saw these patches of ice, they reminded me of fossil imprints on rocks. This first one looks like the skull of some prehistoric being.

This could be a snake, perhaps a relative of Apophis, the giant serpent of Egyptian myth that the sun god, Ra must fight every evening on his journey through the Duat. Ra and the other gods must win the battle each night, or the sun will not rise the next morning.

And this may be a fish-like creature, perhaps a forerunner to the great fish that swallowed Jonah.

What "ice visions" do you see?

Four birds

This way...

 And that way...

And as they say:
"Birdes of a feather will flocke togither."
~ John Minsheu, The Dictionarie in Spanish and English, 1599

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

― Emily Dickinson

Holiday aftermath

Gingerbread gone wrong

Once going by too fast, time is now perpetually stuck at 8:15

 

The wind was rapidly increasing as I took this photo. Thunder rumbled, lightning arced through the clouds. We barely made it in the door before hail and sleet burst from the sky. It must have been a post-holiday phenomenon; thunderstorms are rare this time of year.