Tag Archives: winter

Vegan World

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Here is a collection of images I have taken of plants and landscapes the past days as winter descends and the first frost arrives.

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Winter descends. Previously we had snow only 2000 meters elevation and above. Last night, I fell asleep listening to the slow and peaceful pitter patter of rain falling softly on the roof. I woke up this morning to find the snow had snuck down to 700 meters elevation.

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After this tree’s branches and trunk have built barns, built and heated homes, the remnants have become the nourishment for how many other living entities? Everything gets eaten in the end.

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Frost bite, frost burn, yet there is some beauty in this image. Is there a lesson to be learned?

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The frost is not the end but a tell that the end is near. In the background, the babbling brook runs away from that truth.

Sneaking In

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It happened last night.

Woke up this morning and winter had snuck in. Winter! And I had not yet even finished the requisite autumnal post.

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Snow down to 3,000 meters. Above image shows in the foreground two valleys at 600 meters. The valleys drain the north side of the Jungfrau Massif, part of the Berner Oberland in the Swiss Alps. If you magnify, you can see Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger in the left center background.

Seasoning—is it right?

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Spring, summer, fall and winter…all have their individual tastes and arrive each year with their own uniquenesses.

In the northern hemisphere, now in 2018, we are making the transition between fall and winter. All of you have your own memories and interpretations of these seasonings. I doubt there is a right or wrong.

But the other day, the mountains around my home revealed a certain kind of smorgasbord seasoning, grace to elevation changes. What? What do I mean to say?

On one day, I experienced a very unique variety of seasonings. Full blown winter and full blown fall, completely independent of each other, within less than an hour of each other, again grace to their elevational difference. And, the best for last, something very special above them all.

It is all about the landscape. I hope you can enjoy these images.

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Fall landscape

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Winter landscape

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Heavenly landscape

Northern Hemisphere Only

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The end of the day, the beginning of tomorrow.

The end of the old year, the beginning of the new year.

The end of the winter, the beginning of spring.

In the Northern Hemisphere all of these have resonant overlays.

The last weeks have been cold. The ground has frozen but not covered with snow. Winter is heavily just around the corner. It has its beauties, its discoveries; but it inevitably drags before it finishes. That is when I kling to the hopes of spring.

Kenneth Grahame—consummate observer of nature and seasonal changes in ‘The Wind in the Willows’—captures those spring hopes in reality through his character ‘Mole’. In the attached audio file, I read 90 seconds of Kenneth Grahame’s work wherein he describes how Mole becomes overwhelmed by excessive joy in the arrival of spring.

Mole embodies how we all endure the long winter—endure the hard life without the warmth and light of the sun. And, how we all feel such joy and relief in those first warm days of spring, when, in the meadow, hopes come true.

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