For Real Toads: my husband's photos

Several days ago, Kerry asked us if she might use some of my husband's photos as prompts for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. Dick was very flattered and soon we were both exhausted after going through our many travel photos as well as the pictures he takes when walking our dog Lindy. Much to our surprise, Kerry snaffled a photo from my blog to add to the mix: one of my husband (in which I missed his head) walking a very happy Lindy in the snow.

to resist the Mongol hordes

they built a wall with many a stair

dynasties from Qin to Ming

fortified the very air

a hole in the jungle

looks out to sea

and I look out there, too,

to see

hoar frost, hard frost,

would you kill a tree?

not an easy thing to do

on the lone prair-ie

oh, deer, where can our mamas be?

Lindy so long at us stares

© Photos by Richard Schear in China, Hawaii, and Canada

Our World Tuesday: a year in the life

I'll leave it to you to guess which seasons these photos represent in southeastern Alberta, Canada.

Posted for
Our World Tuesday

© Photos by Kay Davies and Richard Schear, Alberta, 2011/2012

Saturday's Photo Hunting: tree branches

I didn't realize it until today, but our friend Gattina in Belgium has a photo-hunting meme with a different theme every week. This week's theme is tree branches. I do love trees!
This photo was taken on New Year's Day, when we had both snow and hoar frost on our ornamental crabapple tree.
Five days later, we have no snow anywhere, and there's none in the weather forecast until Tuesday, although it could come sooner.
To see more tree branches, or to post your own photos, please visit Gattina at her blog Keyhole Pictures. Next week's theme will be Joy.

© Photo by Kay Davies

Our World Tuesday: snow and hoar frost

Posted for Our World Tuesday. Here's what our world looked like Jan. 1, 2012.

Snow

Hoar frost

Snow on the ground, hoar frost on the branches.

Hoar frost, close-up.

Snow on the evergreens, hoar frost on the deciduous trees.

© Photos above by Richard Schear, January 1, 2012

Wikipedia photo

Hoar frost (also called radiation frost or hoarfrost or pruina) refers to the white ice crystals, loosely deposited on the ground or exposed objects, that form on cold clear nights when heat losses into the open skies cause objects to become colder than the surrounding air. A related effect is flood frost which occurs when air cooled by ground-level radiation losses travels downhill to form pockets of very cold air in depressions, valleys, and hollows. Hoar frost can form in these areas even when the air temperature a few feet above ground is well above freezing. Nonetheless the frost itself will be at or below the freezing temperature of water.  Wikipedia

The tracks of one deer across the snow in our cul-de-sac.

Snow on my little Alberta Spruce outside my new window.

© Photos from my new window by Kay Davies, January 1, 2012

Hoar frost on the leafless trees and on the overhead wires.

For Real Toads: Open Link Monday

It's the first Open Link Monday 2012 for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. We are invited to submit a poem, old or new, in any style we choose. In my case, my old poems no longer exist (except for two I memorized, and have already submitted to Real Toads) so this meant writing a new one.

Here, watching the snow melt on the first Monday of the new year, I realize

How Sad I Feel for Floridians:

*

Snow on roofs,

Hoar frost on trees:

Florida doesn’t have winters like these:

Bright white frost

Against blue sky

Florida, look at this beauty and cry.

All year long

You’re temperate:

No snow to be losing your temper at.

Snowblowers

In your driveway?

No! Sailboats and powerboats hold sway,

When you have warm weather every day.

*

Off to the beach for more fun in the sun,

That’s the way

Your winters run!

Out on the ocean or sitting by pools—

You must think northerners are fools

For digging

And scraping

Our cars from under the snow and ice

But then we find it’s ever so nice

To have a 

Warm car to

Get into.
*

Photos taken

near home

January, 2012.