Lichen and Bare Trees

Sunday was surprisingly mild, with damp air, temps in the 30s, and soft blue skies.

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The marshy lake-around-the-corner is iced over with a layer of mottled silver. The geese have flown, and the water is silent.

A milkweed near the start of my trail looks like a happy monster with a mouthful of fluffy seeds:

Some lovely contrails cross the sky:

At the edge of the thicket glimpsed above, a new stretch of trail has been opened up:

I pass a Very Large Hole - nearly a foot wide - which is obviously someone's front door:

What sort of animal lives here? I wonder. Something with an extensive burrow - there are several more holes in the vicinity (though none quite as large as this one).

There's plenty of colourful lichen on this stretch of the trail. Lime green and pale blue-grey:

Antique gold:

 Vivid orange and silvery grey:

(What colour yarn could you make with these? Annie and Snowcatcher might know....)

A tiny nest punctuates bare branches:

At my feet is a clump of moss, lush and cushiony like a miniscule green carpet:

Around the corner and into the next field, where delicate dried grasses fringe the prairie restoration project...

...their leaves cascading like ribbons beneath the lacy seed heads:

Dried mullein:

Tiny ghosts of goldenrod:

Clouds swoop and dip over a lacy line of trees that edge the pond...

...a pond covered with white-satin ice tinted peach by the westering sun:

After a week of work and intensive crochet, it's good to get outside and see sun and sky, ice and moss, lichen and bare trees.

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P.S. Don't forget to enter the Grateful Giveaway - you could win a special issue of Interweave Crochet, Interweave Knits, or Stitch magazine (and of course the statutory chocolate which is a part of every Micawber giveaway). Giveaway ends December 8th, so hop over and leave a comment now! :)

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