Winter Solstice Walk Through The Woods

What a beautiful day for a walk in the woods.
 The sun was shinning, reflecting off of the snow, giving everything a silvery glow.  

This looks like a great run to practice my short swings! In ski terminology, a narrow, steep chute that keeps you over the tips of your skis as you pop back and forth over the fall line. 

A field of shadows in gray and sepia. The sun is in the south. That ole sun is all the way down to the 45th parallel south of the equator today. The light is coming across the field from the side instead of shinning overhead.  

The light was so good today, bringing clarity to the mottled colors of the bark.  

When you need to envision how colors work with each other, take a look at the works of nature.  

Where some are able to visit museums to observe the play of color, in my area, the north woods is what I have to work with.  

The hoof of a Deer. 

You can see by the shadows how low, in the sky, the sun is today. 

We are having a slight warm up and snow traces the shapes as it recedes from the stumps.  

A long time ago, when men were kings, a young fellow pulled a trailer down the path into the woods and added on a lean-too. There he spent the first few years while building his log home. 

Complete, with outhouse! The young prince was not stupid and spent his winters in the south!

Until, one day, his vision came to be and he moved up on the ridge in his home built of logs. He never looked back and lives there still. The hermit on the hill. 

A bouquet of sticks. 

Weather is hard on the outbuildings. As they serve their purpose and then they deteriorate, much like the body of a human. 

How do you know when it is time to push them over into the hole? Or, maybe if you are lucky they fall over and bury themselves with moss and leaves. 

Sliver gray, here at play, on the Beech tree as well as the building. 

This truck should have a great big wreath with a red ribbon tied in a humongous bow! He is our workhorse around here, he did a nice job of clearing a path for walks in the woods.

And there you have it!
 A walk in the woods on the shortest day of the year, here on the northern 45th parallel.