This past December fooled me. It was so warm. Not at all the way December is supposed to be in the Blue Ridge Mountains or in the Mid-Atlantic states. The whole month was that way. The warmth had me worried about how the rest of the winter would be.

But January came through for me. It’s been a nice frigid cold. Perfect. So far my cabin has been decorated by 17″ of beautiful snow. The first came on January 3rd. Those 9″ were the best, wet, clinging, heavy snow that stayed on the trees for several days. A perfect fairyland. These pictures are not of those snows but what winter also brings, the frosty cold, and with it, ICE.

The first image at the top of this post is of ice on the vernal pool at my yoga studio. The second is also at the yoga studio, and is of frost. And the photo just above this text is ice covered Blueberry buds. And no need to worry, the Blueberry flowers and the berries themselves were just fine, not damaged at all by the ice.

These buds are of Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida). And again Mother Nature is a gentle artist, creating beautiful landscapes covered in ice and still those buds were not harmed. Going on to bloom, creating another gorgeous landscape of flowers a couple months later.

More ice and another Dogwood. This one Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) with its fruit stalks, or pedicels encrusted in ice.

And here, one of my favorite Pine trees. Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). Plastered in ice. All this icy elegance, just one part of why winter is my favorite season.