Winter Isn’t Finished Yet
March 6, 2022
Meteorological spring may have started March 1, but astronomical spring doesn’t start until March 22. Real spring doesn’t start until don’t have to wear my parka anymore. All but the first photograph in this collection were taken in my neighborhood March 3 and 4.
1 On that nicely numbered day, 02/22/2022, snow was still on the ground but dissolving somewhat in the rain.
2 The morning of March 3 was cloudy. The vistas were almost all black, grey, brown, and white, so these yellow and green yucca leaves almost yelled at me.
3 It wasn’t all that cold March 3, and the snow that had fallen overnight was different from previous snows this winter—very wet and clingy, and gone by mid-day.
4 Heiser Pond is still fringed with dried weeds.
5 Intermittently warmer days have melted the ice on this shallowest of our ponds.
6 The thatched tops of nearby cattails caught the snow.
7 The wet snow clung to these roots but not to the stones beneath.
8 March 4 was a much warmer day, but the ice on Rock Pond, our deepest pond, was not giving up so quickly. The frozen surface made a nice backdrop for this straggly young oak and its hanger-on leaves.
9 I may only be quoting myself with this photograph taken at the edge of the pond, but I can’t stop admiring the gracefulness of dried weeds.
10 To avoid even more redundancy, I cropped very tightly into this weeds photo showing the seed heads of small white asters.
11 This is a tight crop, too, necessary if you are to see what interested me: the way that winter has mangled these swamp milkweed seed heads.
Romancing Reality 
It certainly isn’t finished yet. Of course it’s 89 here today but we go to Falmouth on Tuesday.
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March 6, 2022 at 8:53 PM
Well, yes, Sarasota should be 89. We have had two fluke days, yesterday and today, that I didn’t mention. Today the temperature went past 70 and wasn’t much lower yesterday. But tomorrow the high is supposed to be 43, and in a week, only 37. Happy snow photographing in Falmouth.
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March 6, 2022 at 9:12 PM
I like all those “floating” drops in the first picture. In #2 it looks like you yelled back at the yucca leaves with your camera. The grass in #5 looks like it might be little bluestem. “Quoting myself” is a good way to put it; the longer we take pictures, the harder it becomes to avoid doing that. Interesting in #7 that the roots apparently stayed cooler than the stones.
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March 6, 2022 at 10:06 PM
Thanks, Steve. I hope it is obvious that the floating drops were on the window I shot through. I think the grass is indeed little bluestem.
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March 7, 2022 at 11:09 AM
So beautiful. Each image a work of art.
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March 7, 2022 at 2:31 AM
Thank you, Jessica. I’ll be happy to see the seasonal changes to the landscape. Otherwise I may run out of interesting dried weeds or ways to photograph them.
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March 7, 2022 at 11:12 AM
Still looks like winter
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March 7, 2022 at 4:32 PM
Feels like it again, too, after a couple of days hovering around 70.
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March 7, 2022 at 7:24 PM
It’s in West Sussex, England
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March 8, 2022 at 6:11 AM
Yikes
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March 8, 2022 at 6:12 AM
“…until I don’t have to wear my parka anymore” – perfect!! I’m with you on that. Wearing mine every day…. 😉 This post makes me think, “Who needs spring?” Seriously, look what you can do with winter. The last two close crops look like studio shots, especially the second-to-last. The light and dof are captivating. Are you finding it easier to make images like these with the new camera? And the first image – too two to etc. – is also beautiful for the clear, cool, light, and sharp details. The wet snows of late winter are so photogenic…cattails are a great subject. The roots! Who knew that’s what was going on, I didn’t. I like that a lot. And very few people could make the Swamp milkweed leaves look so good at this point in their lives. But you can. 🙂
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March 7, 2022 at 9:52 PM
As I alluded to in my comment about quoting myself, I think I may have run out of things to do with winter. Will have to look harder the next time I’m out with the camera. Yes, I am finding it easier to make images like the last two with the new camera because I can crop way way in. What I have to remember to do is stop down further than ƒ11 for shots like that. The poor DOF in the full frame version was largely responsible for my tight crops; too much was out of focus. The swamp milkweed looked very silvery to my naked eyes, but that didn’t come through in the photo. I think I’ll do a redo on that one—with greater DOF. Thanks for all your comments, Lynn.
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March 8, 2022 at 8:38 PM