Frosted images are gathering momentum around garden blogs at the moment. Yep… I would like to add some from my garden too. Over the weekend we saw pretty cold temperatures for this time of year. At -5.5 deg C (22.1 deg F) throughout the day it was too cold for snow but for two days our garden was frozen out. I can’t remember seeing it as hard hit as this for a few years now.
There are some quite mature trees that we can see from our garden over the top of our hedge. They were looking particularly stunning and drew me out into the cold with my camera. Then, I went walkabout. Then, the birds gave up waiting for me to go back in and came to the feeders!
You could also say I have also been frozen out from my PC too! I’ll not go into the details but let’s just say a Norton update has gone wrong and the brain of my computer (fortunately) is on an external drive! I cannot get access to anything including my emails. Fingers crossed all will be well again in a couple of days. Fortunately, once again, my OH is on the case.
For the first time I am posting from a Laptop as I wanted to share my images from the weekend. Before the update was corrupted my OH had suggested I looked at Picasa for storing etc my photos. How fortunate was that as I would have lost these photos had they been uploaded to the PC and not his laptop. I have to say I have not really taken to Picasa and I managed to crash his laptop two times out of two editing my photos. I returned to PhotoShop and my third attempt worked fine although colours etc look quite different on the laptop. I hope they look okay here.
Today, the temperature warmed up considerably getting to 4 deg C and the serious frost of the weekend is much lighter tonight. The trees looked ‘normal’ again. Tomorrow morning we are expecting to wake up to snow again which is predicted to start at around 3am so all change yet again.
My bulbs sitting in the shed are going to have to wait a few more days yet before I will be able to plant them. I gave my shed a quick tidy later this afternoon and was delighted to see I had collected so many. I love the colours too. In a few days if the ground doesn’t warm up (which is quite likely) I will have to pot the bulbs up and put them in my greenhouse as I did last year. They were great fun to plant that way too.
So, if your garden isn’t frozen out yet I’d get any last minute gardening jobs done as things can change quite dramatically overnight. This really is a magical time for the garden and I hope you are enjoying yours. I also hope you are enjoying seeing lots of new birds visit your garden too.
The photos above were all taken from my garden on November 30th 2008.
We’ve had some light frost, but never anything to particularly draw me out to take photos of.
Most of my bulbs are planted already, a fair few in pots as I got desperate and shoved as many as possible in! 😀
Missed my chance to turn the soil, I guess that’ll be my spring job!
Shirl, that tree towering above the hedge is magnificent. No wonder you had to go outside.
The bird pictures are great too. Their colors really show up in these pictures. I think the color of all the pictures look good.
I hate to hear about your computer problems. My DB is having computer problems, again.
Sorry to hear about the computer problems.
Fabulous pics – everything does look nice when its frosty – but as you say, it seems to have hit quite hard, quite early this year.
K
Hi Shirl, what fabulous looks you are showing us. The colors look great, in particular the birds, I am so envious of your bird photos. Everything in your garden looks wonderful at all times, but this sugar coating brings out the best. Those trees are stupendous!
Stay warm, my friend.
Frances
What lovely, colorful birds! It has gotten really cold here in East Texas in just the past 24 or so hours. I still have flowers blooming. Maybe not tomorrow though, as we’re due a hard freeze.
Brenda
That top shot is a stunner!
The snow we had is long gone so it’s nice to see your winter garden magic, Shirl. Oh dear, computer problems, bother! PC’s are great but not when there’s something not working properly. Hope your pc problems will be solved quickly.
Loved the pics, especially those of the birds.
Hi again Liz, Lisa, Karen, Frances, Brenda, Jim and Yolanda 🙂
Liz – Yes, I don’t tend to go out with my camera with a light frosting much either. Great to hear you’ve got your bulbs – you never know you might get a chance to turn the soil yet 😀
Lisa – I agree completely! We are lucky we can see this tree but it isn’t too close either. There is a row of houses parallel to our hedge and a narrrow road in front of them. This magnificent tree is on the other side of the road. Thank-you, I loved the bird shots too but I am dying to see how the colours came up on my much brighter PC screen. Oh… the PC probs are far from over. I hope your DB gets his probs sorted easily. Fortunately my husband has a good idea what to try but the process lasts a couple of hours and then the message displays it is corrupted again. It is becoming a bit of a headache that is turning into a nightmare. We had no operating system running and I had to pick up another basic keyboard and mouse as we can’t even use the existing ones! My OH is pretty sound on backing up the PC and Laptops regularly and did a full back up before adding the new internet security – how seriously good was that! It is really weird to think the whole brain of this PC is in a little box sitting on the desk at the moment. It is also very scary!! Photos, videos, files of all kinds, mail and so much more are in it.
Karen – Thank-you, see Lisa’s reply for details. If we get out the other side of this I think there is going to be a naming and shaming post here. Two products have faults here and I suspect we aren’t the only ones that have had this problem. MY OH will need to do some serious troubleshooting research here too yet before he strips the PC programs right down and starts over again. I do expect some losses in the process 🙁 Yes, thank-you I was pleased with the pics and was desperate to share them – hence the laptop trial. Yes, today it is still very cold and we got the expected snow too.
Frances – Thank-you, it is great the magic that nature can do to the garden sometimes isn’t it? Thank-you, I am just desperate to see these bird pics especially on my usual monitor. I agree the frost is like a sugar coating – in fact I was actually tempted to sugar coat some flowers from inside to compare them 😉 I agree, we are really very lucky to see these trees from our windows and garden. Thank-you, stay warm too 😀
Brenda – They are aren’t they especially against the frost. Ah… I do find this very interesting to hear about temps in other parts of the world. Pre-blogging I would never guessed Texas would be feeling the cold at the same as Scotland. Do you get snow too and if so is it pretty heavy and widespread?
Jim – Thank-you, I was pleased to capture it although this image doesn’t truly show quite how stunning it was in real life. I am still happy with it though ;-D
Yolanda – I wondered if your snow would be gone again as ours returned this morning. It is to snow a bit more on and off the rest of the week here. Yes, we don’t have the winter wonderland look that your garden had with snow but during the two days we had this serious frost we had it then! Glad you enjoyed the bird pics too. Arghhhhh… I fear the PC probs are really going to turn in to quite a nightmare yet!! Not looking good 🙁
Lovely pictures especially the first one. The tree looks almost artificial being so white. Hope your computer problems get sorted soon.
Shirl, we just replaced my old hand me down computer with a 15 inch Mac Book Pro. I am still getting used to the keyboard, but am enjoying it!
Your photos look awesome to me on it! We had a few sprinkles of snow the other day but haven’t gotten as cold as you have.
Hi there Denise and Sue:-)
Sorry, I seem to have missed replies here. I do appreciate all comments 🙂
Denise – Thank-you, I agree it really did not look real. Thank-you, we are getting there now. I am back able to do most things on my PC but so many settings chosen previously (not default) are lost and it’s only when I come to use certain parts that I get caught with this. I can’t complain though as all the important stuff like photos are okay 😀
Sue – Yes, as you say it is getting used to using simple applications like writing a letter that catch you out when you start anew. I believe Macs are great for creative applications but I have never used on. Enjoy yours! So glad my photos were okay for others to view as I had no benchmark for them. My OH had already bought me a new wider monitor (Christmas pressie) so things will look different in colour to me then too. I will see more though (so he keeps telling me :-D). I am guessing it will be colder with you now. Our snow has gone now and the temps are a little higher during the day and at night at the moment. Gosh… you do have the collecting bug! Sorry nothing to share there – it’s only plants I collect and photos/video of birds and wildlife 😀
I have to catch up a lot of posts which you wrote during my holidays in the mountains. First of all, I want to wish you and your family a healthy and very happy 2009! May it bring a lot of joy and wonderful surprises to you. It’s amazing to see, that a lot of European countries are covered with frost and snow. Wonderful pictures as always.
Stay warm and take care, Shirl!
Barbara
Hi again Barbara 🙂
Great to hear from you 🙂 Hope you had a wonderful time in the mountains. Thank-you, I would like to wish you and your family all the very best for 2009 too 😀
Yes, we’ve had a few frosts and odd coverings of snow (all gone again) but so far it hasn’t been excessively cold here. February and sometimes March are our coldest months with the most snowfall expected then.
Thank-you, as you know, I do enjoy taking photos. I love to see yours form your garden and your trips too 😀
All the best 😀