Crystalline Entities

The winter is toying with us.  It's almost February, and still no snow to speak of...just a heavy dusting that's usually gone by midday.  

In the most recent "snow," the snowflakes were fantastically large...so much so that you could actually see the crystalline shape without the aid of magnification.  

I need some camera equipment that will allow me to take better, more crisp macro photos, but you can get a sense of them here:

My "winter interest" plants give them a pleasing place to accumulate.

We had just enough snow - briefly - for me to spot a mouse path by the back garden!

The temporary snow is nice.  Better than the frayed dead grass and barren fields.  Clean, bright.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in The Long Winter, "Snow had blown under the door and across the floor and every nail in the walls was white with frost."  It's the same with our porch roof nails!  The frosty spiderwebs make beautiful constellations, too.

Even without snow, it's been so cold that the birds are all puffed up on their branches...

...or eating greedily at the feeders.

We have more blue jays than any other birds here - sometimes big flocks will descend and argue noisily just beyond the front porch.  Their blue color is so vibrant - and welcome! - at this time of year.

Even menace birds like European starlings have a little to contribute.  Their feathers are so beautiful in the sun!

The sky has been blue, too.

Frost makes intricate patterns on the glass of our screen door.

It's not the crystalline entity from Star Trek...

photo courtesy of massivelyop.com

...but still pretty nice!

I finally finished my Funchal Moebius cowl this week. 

It was just a matter of grafting this...

...into a tube.

The graft did not go well.  I wasn't able to distinguish between actual stitches and the "floats," or the carried strands of yarn, on the end of the tube where I'd secured with temporary stitches, and so the join was lumpy, bumpy, and uneven.

I even broke the yarn at one point, so there's a tumorous lump on one side where I tried to weave in an extra two strands of yarn.  I'm bitter, but not bitter enough to unravel the join and do it again.  Close enough, I say, and the back bit will be under my hair.  Happy to have it completed and am already halfway through my next project!

And happy coincidence...the camera strap that I just bought (made from a recycled '70s couch) mimics this pattern a bit!  I love bright colors in winter.

The cats (who still despise each other) are enjoying these sunny days...

...and we're waiting to see if February will usher in some real winter weather.

Have a great week!