Frosty Sunrise

With all our cold weather, I've been hoping we would get one of our really spectacular heavy frosts—where it looks like snow covers everything. But so far, no luck, or else I've missed it by sleeping in.

We had a little warm spell last weekend, warm enough for me to wear sandals to the opening of the new art co-op in the small town closest to where we live.

This morning, though, we had frost again—and though it wasn't spectacular, the sunrise was pretty enough to send me digging around in my purse for my camera.

That whitish glaze over the grass is our frost.

Come August, I will be longing for cool mornings like this one!

A Spell of Long, Hard Freezes

We are deep into what is most likely going to be a record-setting number of days of hard freezes, more than I can ever remember all at once and definitely longer than the ice storm spell of 1989.

Yesterday, there was snow to the south of us–Ocala and Orlando areas–but our air was too dry to permit the white stuff to make it to the ground, for which we are cursing our luck because if it's going to be this cold, we might as well have something pretty to look at!

This morning when I got in my car to go to work (yes, I work on Sundays), it was 16 degrees and the frost had painted these beautiful little star-like designs on the side of my car. (You can click on the picture, above, for a better view.) Driving in to work on a rural highway, it was frosty on both sides of the road, and as I was driving there were bright little twinkly lights emanating from the frost.

I keep hoping we will at least get one of our beautiful heavy frosts, so I can post a picture of something besides my car in the cold weather—but so far the frost has not been heavy enough to really show up well in a photograph. I guess the air has been too dry.

Steve's Sycamore, and a Late Freeze!

Here's my neighbor Steve's big sycamore tree. If there's a better barometer of the changing seasons, I don't know what it is. Delicate green leaves in the spring, bigger and deeper green leaves all summer, finally turning golden-brown in autumn and then shedding all over the place just like yellow feral cats.

Look for this same view of Steve's sycamore as we move through spring into summer and then fall and winter. (As with all pictures on this blog, if you click it, you'll see a bigger version.)

We've been lucky lately; we've had rain (spring into early summer is our dry season). Now, tonight, there is a forecast of a freeze that is expected to set records for our area—down to 31 degrees! This isn't unheard of in April in North Central Florida, but it's rare.

If I'm up early enough tomorrow morning, I'll try to get a picture if we have frost—but since frost doesn't really photograph well unless it's heavy, I'm not sure I'll have much luck.