I don’t know-can you stand it?

Fog Horse.  Not horn.  Horse.

Flocked gate.

Horse with birds.  Sometimes, all you can do is stand there.

What you are seeing here is the chain and lock on the pasture gate.  Can you find them?

Remember that little candy cotton weed in the last bunch of these?  This is the same guy, two days’ hoar frost later.

After a while, you get cranky.  This shot is almost solarized – I had to show you his frosted mane.

FROM PASTURE TO OUR HOUSE:

Collie, prowling the yard.  What you see here is not snow; when the sun comes out and a breeze comes up, the tiny wings of frost fly off the trees and fly lightly through the air.  Sun through iced branches.

You have to look close here.  In that little patch of sun to the right of the tree, the air is shimmering with tiny flat crystals.  It’s hard to see unless you get close – like every inch of air is full of flight.

Branch in ice against snow.  You can see some of the diamonds in this one.  I am killing myself, here, trying to show you these diamonds.

You see that little bit in the middle that looks like a delicate, filagree butterfly?  This is the latch on our front gate.  In a moment, that butterfly will be gone, because I have to raise that latch.  And these filmy things are so delicate, they simply disintegrate –

My red fingers.

Out the back.  Looking down river.

Up the river.  The sun is coming down towards us, bringing morning.

Our neighborhood, looking up the street to the east.  That’s a mountain back there.

Another shimmer-fest.  Right above the fire pit, you can see it against the studio wall.  The air full of silver flashes.

Through the side windows.  The bridge G and the boys made.

On the front porch, a single strand of spider silk, iced.

The front of our place.  It looks like we’re caught in the froth of a giant wave.

When you hear the phrase, frost lace, this is what it means.

Our front gate.  There’s this bat bell mobile that has hung on the gate forever.  I shoulda bought a spring bell thing, but I didn’t, so the bats are there all year.  Even when they’re iced.

Toward the garage.

Okay.  I’m still trying to catch the diamonds.  And I really, really want to catch the color.  But after hours of trying to handle contrast and color and gamma levels, I am flipping giving up.  So this snow looks gray and uggggly, but you can see the sparkles, and maybe begin to see what I mean, like you’re walking on a carpet of glitter.

The poor betrodden front walk.  But it has its diamonds, too.  And this is the point where I really, really just gave up.  What you will see next will PROVE that I’m tellin’ the truth about the jewels in the snow.  I shot about four dozen frames, trying to capture this.  Finally, Chaz says to me, “You can see it better if you squint.”  So I made the camera squint.  And then, when I was processing the image, just threw my hands in the air, shoved up the darks, and ended up with jewels in mud.  BUT YOU CAN SEE THEM.

I mean, when you see them in real life, it’s a field of startling,  shatteringly white snow, studded with these scintillating  jewels.  Once, we went to Topaz Mountain with the children—a place in southern Utah where you can dig topaz out of the hillside.  Incredibly magical.  As we drove the nasty, dry desert road back into those hills, I was disgusted: this was obviously one of those out of the way desert weekend party places where ne’er do wells get together to drink and carouse.

The road was covered with broken glass.  Or so I thought.  I finally got my GM to let me get out and take a look at the surface of the road.  And it wasn’t broken glass – there were shards of jewels ALL OVER THE ROAD, and they were sending slivers and needles of colored light up into our faces.  And that is what this snow is like.

Now – some strange shapes:

This reminds me of those crystal science projects: you take the magic rock and put it into a bowl and add chemicals, and over time, these alien crystal formations start growing.  That’s what this reminds me of.  That, or sea coral.

And this?  Sea coral?  The inside of a huge geode?  Or really gross snow?

Yes.  Yes.  We have an infestation of Chinese dragons in that horse trailer.

And here’s something you don’t see every day: frost on the mouse???

Okay.  That’s all.  I have to go pack for Texas.  I think this is the end of the frost pictures.  I hope it is; my hard drive is so running out of space.  It’s cold outside – but the sun feels good on our faces.  This weekend (after I get home, I hope) there’s a storm coming that will push us closer to spring.  I’m ready for that.

If you shudder at the thought of our winter, understand that it is the price of our spring.

And way worth it.