Tag Archives: Ice
A shot of the lower half of the falls.
I did very little editing, mostly just made it a bit brighter, and didn’t fiddle with the balance or boost the “color saturation,” or whatever it’s called.
I think the color comes from minerals and perhaps fresh-water algae. Pale blue? Pale turquoise?
The Crayola box (the big one, my go-to reference for art stuff) indicates “aquamarine,” but when I look online at a color chart, that’s way too green.
“Bluish” will have to do.
Taughannock Falls & Icicles, Tompkins County, February
I went out one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
I picked up my shovel and began to whine
I loaded sixteen tons of wet gray snow
And my neighbor said “It’s just started to blow.”
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
It’s another foot deeper and my socks are wet
Saint Peter don’t you call me when there’s all this snow
It’s hellish cold and the wind does blow
If you see me comin’, better step aside
Snowblower’s goin’ and we’re goin’ for a ride
Throttle is stickin’ and you’re gonna take a lickin’
If the auger sucks your foot inside.
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
It’s another foot deeper and my socks are wet
Saint Peter don’t you call me when there’s all this snow
It’s hellish cold and the wind does blow
Apologies to Merle Travis
A little exertion & one ton of exaggeration
Time for Old Man Winter to make tracks & beat it.
Late Afternoon, Late Winter
One more cellphone B&W. For some reason, the low-resolution look just feels correct for this scene and a very cold February.
I think most of us, when we think of “tree” in our mind’s eyes, see a trunk and a mass of leaves.
But in this part of the world, these trees spend most of their lives leafless.
And on a warmer note, although I generally don’t photograph nudes, it’s a pleasure to be able to see the architecture of the trunk and branches.
February – – two trees
Cellphone snap of two pine trees, looking just as cold as me.
It’s black & white, but this is the time of year I really appreciate pines, for a bit of green.
Evergreens, when it’s ever snowy, ever gray skies, ever blue fingers, ever red noses.
February — two pine trees
Old Man Winter still got teeth. Walks Around Upstate New York. March.
I resisted the title “Beech on the Beach,” but it’s accurate. Winter storms undermined this tree, until there was nothing left to shore it up. During a rare day of sunshine, I walked on the shingle, and saw this sparkling up ahead. It looked a bit like a big chandelier had crashed into the water.
We’re at that slippery divide between seasons, transitioning from slipping on ice, to sliding on mud. March always throws both at us.
Setting aside a month for a bellicose and unstable guy like the god Mars was not a good idea. In the Great Lakes region, it’s a pugnacious season, and full woolen body armor is still recommended.
Full of bluster and false promises of warmth. We don’t always see the lion-to-lamb thing – – it’s more “In like a blowhard, out like sheep dip.” Still icy winds and snow, and then mud, that’s still pretty chilly when it soaks through the seat of your pants after an embarrassing slip’n’slide. No flowers yet, and the only efflorescence going on around here is crusty deposits from road salt and chemical runoff.
I read an article recently about the old discussion over the number of Eskimo terms for snow, apparently going on at least since “The Handbook of American Indian Languages” was published in 1911 . I don’t want to reignite the debate, and I don’t want to think about snow for a while. Just want to build a little birdhouse in my soul & a little Florida room in my mind.
Strange clumps of ice crystals along the lake shore, like those deep-fried “blooming onions” that were a fad for a while. It’s sad, really, how much I think about food. This picture looked ok and sharper on my computer, than here on WP (?) First time using a tiny Sony pocket camera, the size of a pack of Luckies. Unfiltered, both the cigarettes and camera, I got it for a trip where I’d be traveling light, but now cancelled due to the virus.
But if my enthusiasm for ice has cooled a bit, it does occur to me, we really don’t have nearly enough terms for mud. I only know a few, like Muck & Mire.
This prompted me to look those two up – – I always thought they were the same thing, but in the final scene, we find out, Muck is the slimy one, and Mire is the deep one.
My personal favorite is “gumbo,” since as we squelch through the muck & mire, we often release all sorts of fragrant gasses and spicy odors. Sometimes as things warm up, some paths, maybe the more aerated ones, give off a kind of nice composted smell, and sometimes a rich bouillabaisse aroma, that’s not unpleasant at all.
I’d be interested in any terms you use for mud (colorful is good, I know I don’t have to ask you to keep it clean).
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