There was some delicate frost on evergreens we planted as fingerlings from Arbor Circle 20 years ago, when we first moved here. A faint pinkish glow showed through the woods on a walk with my son and dog the other day; a faint sheen of ice coated the farms next door, blown clean by the wind; I enjoy the dramatic branches of winter trees pointing skyward; and an old road on the property that my kids use for walking the dog.
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Randy, I think you are wrong. I have been staring at them for over 10 minutes, and have yet to one move. 
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LOL thank you. Communication is everything!
We have had a huge year for acorns. It was so beautiful. Huge. MOst amazing year for acorns this country has ever seen. No other acorn crop could match it.
Well, it was a big year here, called a mast year, supposedly an adaptation to oversupply acorns over demand to help propagate the species. In any case, the deer and squirrels are fat and happy. It is interesting how oak trees all synchronize their production, at least over this extended area. I am curious as to whether it was a bumper crop over the rest of the country?
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I heard that it was this year in Michigan, too. There were articles about it being a “mast” year–and no matter how much I hear about it, I still don’t understand the science behind it. How do they do it?
that is amazing how all the oak trees nationwide decide to have a bumper crop the same year.
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There’s a good chance that next year will be thin, maybe even non-existent. It’s a complex interaction with the critters that eat acorns and the critters that eat them, that functions to reduce the number of critters that eat acorns so the next batch will have a betteer success rate.
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The 13 year and 17 year cicadas have a similar strategy - overwhelm the predators at weird time intervals. We don’t seem to have exceptional acorn levels here in North Carolina, probably enough climactic difference that the trees are on different cues. Species that depend on overwhelming numbers are rather vulnerable if the numbers drop, though - see passenger pigein, American locusts, etc.
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A comparison of the seed crops of several tree species in the northern Europe suggested that the synchrony operates or emerges at scales of crudely 1000km. All the investigated natural trees (a pine, a spruce, two birches, rowan) had synchronized peak crops at that scale. The multi-year pattern was apparently driven by a need to collect resources for a high/mast crop - after a mast crop, it takes more than one year to accumulate enough of resources for the next peak crop.
Why all the tree species had synchronized peak crops may be related to what happens for the trees that are out of synchrony. When there is generally a lack of suitable food, all the seed eaters from a wide area would focus on the small patch with a high seed crop. Such an outlier would not have great success. This favours and selects those trees that happen to be synchronized with the general multi-year pattern.
A partial exception to the general pattern appears to be the trees growing in small patches within productive agricultural lands or gardens. The peak years are synchronized with the natural forests but trees within very productive patches can produce a moderate crop even when the trees growing in the natural environments fail to produce a seed crop. That is my own observation, supported by the observations of some other researchers.
The study was done in environments with relatively short growing seasons and relatively poor soils, so the pattern might differ in better environmental conditions.
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Beautiful! It reminds me of Bespin, Cloud City.
I am sorry-I don’t want to exclude anyone. I’ll change the title to “Nature Photos Around the World”
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A broad banded water snake
First time seeing an earthstar ( type of puffball ) growing on a tree.
Veggie soup. “ better than bouillon “ the vegan chicken broth imitation paste. Then diced up sweet onion, carrots and broccoli with tofu and lots of chickpeas.
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Zantedeschia aethiopica ‘Hercules’ flower, but the foliage you see belongs to neighboring Geranium maderense.
This calla lily’s leaves are large with white markings seen here.
New foliage emerging on Japanese Maple.
Nice winter foliage of a few Aeoniums surrounding an echeveria.
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Beautiful subjects and stellar photos, Thanks!
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