Icy Beauty

Last night we had another freezing fog that left everything covered with hoar frost.  I wasn't too keen to go outside to take pictures, because the day stayed gray and drab.  Later in the afternoon, though, the sun made an appearance and enticed me to go outside with my camera.  I wore my red wellies because the snow is still quite deep. 

The cats (Jazmin and Max) wanted to come out too.  You can just see them on the steps next to the sunroom at the left of the photo.  That was as far as they ventured.  The icicles are even longer than they were in one of my previous posts.

It was quite a chore to walk through the deep snow from the patio area on one side of the house to the wildflfower area on the other side.  I followed deer tracks whenever possible, but it was still hard work to break a human-sized trail. 

Here is a trail I made last week to put some feed out at the edge of woods for the wildlife when the temperatures were so brutally cold for a couple of weeks.

 

The snow came a few inches above the tops of my wellies.  The wildflower stalks and seed heads were sparkly and beautiful with their decoration of ice crystals. 

These 2 shots are of figwort (I think).

And these 2 are of some aggravating weed whose seeds grab hold of clothing and won't let go.  These crystals remind me of barbed wire.

I think most beautiful crystals were on the Black Hills Spruce trees, although from a distance they weren't very noticable.

A closer look reveals an intricate beauty.