Wilderness Wednesday: December Fog

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fog, frosting, nature, nature photography, photography, Wilderness Wednesday, winter

Night is brushed aside like so much cobweb. The day is wound up and begins even before the last haunted dreams, the last of the fog, those spectral and evanescent residues, have faded away.

Gregory Maguire, After Alice

Happy Wednesday!

CFFC: Close Up

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CFFC, frosting, nature, Photo Challenge, photography

This morning, everything was covered in a heavy frost. The clouds along the horizon were thin and shades of mauve, while the sky above was patched with pale blue and rosy pink. Every so often, the speckled silhouettes from a flock of geese would twinkle by. The fields, trees, even the rushes along the ditch were dusted with frozen icing sugar. It looked so peaceful.

This week’s fun foto challenge is close up or macro shots. I don’t have a macro lens (it’s on my wish list) so I have to play with the macro setting on my camera, and accept that I am missing a lot of the fine detail.

These photos were taken on different days – I didn’t have my camera today so had to make mental images of everything instead.

A peaceful man does more good than a learned one. – Pope John XXIII

Happy Wednesday!

WPC: Temporary Frost

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frosting, nature, Photo Challenge, photography, Weekly Photo Challenge

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.
– J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Thursday morning’s stroll around the building before work. No strolling today – we had our first snowstorm last night. Time for hot tea and warm socks, red woolen mittens…and sassy green boots! Happy Weekend!
To see more “Temporary” photos, click here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Magic

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frosting, nature, Photo Challenge, photography, Weekly Photo Challenge

Morning Frost

 

“Winter giveth the fields, and the trees so old,
Their beards of icicles and snow…”
~Charles duc d’Orléans, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To see more Magic photos, click here.

Cupcakes

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cupcake, food, frosting, happy, humour, pink, sweets

Fluffy, swirled, sweet creations in a pleated paper cup – both pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the palate. With or without sprinkles, just the thought of a cupcake, any size or flavour, makes me want to close my eyes and lick my lips. I can just picture it in my mind, peeling back the paper like a personal gift, and image biting into it, pink icing frosting my lips…Mmmm…What is it about cupcakes that charm us to nibble and savour, regardless of age, race, gender or size?

Originally I was going to write about my recent cooking disasters: Greek Crock-pot Stew with an overwhelming tomato flavour…or the Chicken-Feta Sauce that looked like baby vomit, and had no taste…but who wants to focus on the ‘yuck’ when one can focus on the ‘yum’?

After Morning Break registration yesterday, I called and picked up a friend to go out for a bite of lunch…on the way, we passed a new cupcake store in town. I didn’t even know we had a new cupcake store in town, and since I very rarely travel down main street, I could have been missing out on its delightful creations for far too long. It was closed…but after lunch and a quick emergency run to a grocery store, we cruised down main street again and the cupcake store’s neon sign said “OPEN”! Hang a right, swing around the block, park, and walk quickly and directly to said store! How could we pass up such an amazing opportunity to indulge? We had, after all, just consumed a relatively nutritious lunch and it was time for dessert.

It is a very small store painted in pink (is there any other colour when you’re selling cupcakes??), but she offered 8 different flavours, each one with a swirled dollop of icing on top! It was hard to choose between Key Lime, Double Chocolate, Black Forest, Lemon Delight, Super Fudge…I finally chose Coconut Crème…and it was divine!

The first commercial cupcake was made in the early 1900’s, and since 2004, cupcake sales have been trending higher every year. Is it that cupcakes are just for us – a little bit of sweetness and colour, and a return to childhood when we were happy and carefree? Is it the size – small enough to eat without overwhelming guilt while still satisfying our craving for something sweet? I may not understand the psychology behind our love for cupcakes, so whatever the flavour (in my new favourite place), I’m just going to indulge from time to time, and savour every bite when I do.