REMAINDER OF FEBRUARY...2

Good Morning beckons me for a walk in the woods.
Fall, winter and a touch of spring.
Managing a kernel of food

The prize

LOOKING BACK ON JANUARY...4

WARMING THE WINTER SKY...

Keeping true to my original idea of this blog, what brings me calm here in Wishnik Woods...I present yet another vivid sunrise painting the twilight sky. This was this past Sunday mornings' greeting to the world, every color of the rainbow except green. The last sunrise that I shared, I claimed it was the most colorful sunrise yet. I stand corrected! The sky was bursting in color here on the horizon, yet the rest of the skies were very deep muted blues. Darkness lingered for the most part outside as I made my journey to the back of our property which overlooks fields and yet more woods. In the still of the early morning, with a minimum of light to guide me through the woods, I set out with my camera and tripod. Not far behind, my husband hurried to catch up with me. Initially he thought that I was going to capture this sunrise from the pond up by our cabin. I was, until I got outside and the colors quickly deepened and spread further along the horizon. That's when I decided to take a walk through the woods. These images were zoomed in, that...along with the overall dark atmosphere explains the dark silhouettes of the trees. Believe it or not, I could see where I was going. I followed deer tracks along the path. If you click to enlarge this first photo, you can see the snow along the bottom, it was dark out!

My Nikon captures the rise and sets with absolute true color and clarity. I'm extremely happy with the results.
A couple of photos here I cropped for a slightly closer view.

This last one of the series, is the final shot I took as the sun began to show itself. I couldn't last any longer, as I was standing there in amazement, the pain in my toes reminded me that I was quickly freezing over! If I remember correctly, the air was 9 degrees. As I glanced back towards this sight on our way back to the cabin, the colors were quickly fading just as fast as they appeared. I had made it just in time...and I think even my husband was glad he was being the ever protective husband, he hadn't even finished his first cup of coffee!

I'd like to send out one big thank you to all who stopped by and sent birthday wishes to my mother in the last post. All the kind words made her day all the more special. She asked that I let you all know that she says...Hello! ...and a big thank you to all! She was surprised and told me she's not sure she deserved all the praise. Note to Mom...Yes, you do!

IN THE MORNING...

The past few mornings offered a couple of pleasant surprises. A pair of Mourning Doves and a large squirrel have found there way to the feeder. The doves and the squirrel were photographed from inside the cabin. Now, I know that I have my work cut out for me as far as the squirrel visiting the feeder, but I was thrilled to be able to capture a few good shots. This big guy(girl?...despite the pose, I'm not sure!) was positively frightened when he saw me. I admit, I do look pretty scary in the morning! He must've scurried on every branch of this tree twice over. Up, down and all around...until I opened the side door and he took a flying leap from about 15 feet high and landed on the ground about 12 feet from the tree! I expected to find an empty feeder this morning. So far, it's still intact and my fingers are crossed.

Saturday morning as I looked out one of my back windows up the hill to see how the day was about to greet me...I was greeted with this view. This was the most colorful, spectacular sunrise I've seen yet here in the woods!

Of course, I had to venture out in the frigid cold twilight to capture this vivid sunrise, keep in mind, the coloring in these has not been enhanced, these are true colors.

Same view, I cropped the previous photo.
Here's the same view once again, only about eight minutes later, as more of the sun peeks up over the horizon.

The early bird gets the seed in this case, the first one I saw at the feeder before heading back in the cabin was a Dark-eyed Junco. My granddaughter, Celine, built that feeder out of scrap wood when she was bored one day...she did a fine job!

SPELLBOUND...

Need I say more?...Standing on my porch was this view, it was as if the trees themselves were holding the full moon captive. This was taken very early this morning as the sun was just beginning to rise on the opposite side of the woods.

The clouds gracefully moved across the sky in their finest shades of peaches, pinks and grays. This point here was between the full moon resisting is setting, and the sunrise barely rising over the back hill...

and the new dawn begins...

I couldn't decide which to post, so both are shown, this was the capture prior to cropping. The glow on the underside of the clouds was just heavenly.

These next three photos were from this weekend, as I gaze at the moon in awe, it's hard not to feel as if I'm under it's spell. My mind clears of all else...I'm totally drawn into it's mystery. I'm in solitary confinement with nature...totally surrounded by the crisp, dark night. Comforted by the towering, silhouetted trees of the woods, as the moon casts her spell on me.





One more sunset coloring the sky.

SUNRISE, SUNSET...

This first photo is the sunrise in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning, which the rest of the day turned out equally beautiful as well. I'm not sure if you can see the white plastic bottle in the pond at the farthest end, but if you do, that is where we moved the waterlillies to overwinter. Hopefully that decision comes through for us next spring, it was either place them deeper or take the plant out and store elsewhere in cool storage.

I am mesmerized by moonlit nights, a starry sky, thunderstorms, the sunrise and a sunset. These captures were just too beautiful not to share! This first sunset photo was taken after I walked halfway up our pinehill. It was taken on a different night as the other sunsets shown here. It really irks me that I am hesitant to walk my own woods due to wandering hunters. On Thanksgiving day we drove up north, three counties away to be with family. Upon our return the next day, I hadn't even got out of my truck when I saw a hunter close to the pond. Which means he was fairly close to the cabin. He was hiding behind a tree, but I happened to see him quickly take off his bright red-orange cap. My husband walked over to him, with our two large dogs. The hunter ended up being a neighbors' nephew, at least not a total stranger. My neighbors are aware of how I feel about hunting, and my neighbors all hunt. It would truly upset me to see an animals' life taken in my woods.

These last three photos are of the same sunset, just look at the changing blues, oranges and reds all within about a 15 minute time frame. The vivid colors that are produced in nature never cease to amaze me. The reds and oranges this evening were on fire! Almost unreal looking...too bad the sunsets don't last longer, but that just makes me appreciate them even more.

In this capture, at the lower right hand corner, you'll see the snow on top of the very first structure we built here in the woods. This is a simple wood storage barn, if my memory is correct, it's about 10 x 16. This is where we stayed and camped when we'd come out and build the cabin every weekend. That little building had it all! Cooking utensils for over the firepit, sleeping bags up in the loft, even a makeshift bathroom. On the back of our barn, we built an outdoor shower. After heating water over a fire, we'd pour it into a camping shower bag and hang it on the hook. I actually loved taking a shower and looking up at the treetops. My granddaughter was quite young then, she loved camping there and called it the E-I-E-I-O barn.