Photo Overload ... OUCH !!

I have been reading and admiring the garden picture wrap up that some bloggers have been doing. It has been so nice to see .. so I wanted to try and pick the best of the best ? to post about.
Picture overload happened .. it has been so overwhelming it is comical .. along the way I have wondered "Why did I save these certain pictures ?" .. some so blurry , or too dark/light .. or what the heck was I thinking when I took THIS ???
Is anyone else like this ? ... I have so many on my lap top now that the only way to handle them is transfer them to a disc so I can have a fresh start to the New Year ...
If anyone had seen me here .. in my pajamas .. muttering comments to the pictures .. trying to make decisions "keep or junk???" ... well it is too funny.
I chose this beautiful red tulip I have to say (in simple terms for the sake of my sanity)
HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone : ) .... phew !!!!

Red Sky Morning Show

It has been a while since the morning sky has put on a show.
This morning it finally graced me with spectacular gradients of blues,violets, pinks and reds. Not only in colour but in structure from the clouds .. you will see what I mean as you scroll through the pictures. It must have been a gift before the wind hit us .. I find strong winds noisy and very unsettling .. that they have been today ! Click on the pictures : )

We have had record breaking high temperatures .. with rain .. which should have been snow for this time of year. It makes you wonder what will come next .. that is why I find sky watching so fascinating .. it changes all the time.

Ho Ho Ho

Dave ? Dave ? ... Oh NO !!!!!

It was a dark and stormy sky ............ well, OK ... a bit of sun was poking through the snow clouds .. the wind was howling .... yeah, maybe last night it was .. for sure ! I just knew the Benchwarmers were going to be in trouble with all the snow creeping up on them .. and I was .... RIGHT !

Dave ? ... Dave ? .... are those snow-muffs you are sporting ? ... or are you trying to tell me something ?

AShot of Green with a Touch of Colour NEEDED !!

I know ... this is not fair .. these are pictures from months ago .. just random pictures I was scrolling through as I am watching this BIG winter storm happening here south east Ontario .. Kingston is a piece of work when it comes to snowfall .. but that is another story altogether. Minus 14 degrees Celsius and wicked winds with "white outs" happening.We scurried yesterday while there was a pause in the weather to buy "supplies" ? .. meaning right up to the turkey dinner time .. with naughty treats and all.

So here I am in my blue polar bear flannel pajamas ... dreaming of what it was like to walk around my garden .. all of the beautiful plants I have collected in the past few years especially .. no gardener goes a season without learning something new .. either in plant selection or gardening method .. it is always something different every year and that is what I love about gardening .. the adventure !

Well .. I just had to have a "shot of green and a touch of colour" as we dig deep here to really hibernate as all good Canadians in "winter country" do .. I just needed this to hold me over for a bit longer .. it might happen again early February .. but I will try to hold on ?

Locked in Ice

I love these pictures because the grass is literally locked in ice .. but it almost looks like a purposely posed picture .. and again, the ice has total control of the grass .. freezing it in that pose .. even though the grass seems delicate the ice maneuvers itself to not break it as much as encase it. It always amazes me.

What Ice and Tin Do

You have to double click and enlarge the picture, to appreciate how this ice flowed down the branches of the Bittersweet vine.
I bought this metal oval art a couple of years ago and it is aging well in the garden. I thought it ironic to hang such a piece while it depicts flowers itself. A flower within flowers.

The droplets of water quick frozen in almost mid-drip ? at the end of the twigs.

The end picture is finally the whole oval metal work with the branches almost waving across it.

MoonMan

Ice ... Glass .. Wood and Grass ?

My "Plant Mobile" (aka green Sunfire) suffers from "low usage" in the winter .. mainly when it has been iced in .. so jumping in with hubby and a warm truck is a more favorable choice for me .. eventually though .. I will have to chip away at the ice ... turn on the motor and then seriously de-ice the poor car !

Alas ... all the above images are poor icy adornments in my garden .. in various stages of icy-ness ... mess ? .. but there are still berries on the Mountain Ash for the birds to pluck .. although they are a wee bit COLD and perhaps some what like a berry popsicle ?

Snowy Grasses

You really have to double click on some of these pictures to get the full affect of the delicate clear glass ice coating some of these grasses have .. mother nature is a perfectionist if nothing else with some of her wintry touches.
This is a Blue Fescue grass with slender fingers poking out still.

Purple Flame grass miscanthus with individual stalks frozen in time ...

Hamlin fountain grass strikes me as just plain cute with it's curly hairs all askew .. like a bad hair day ?

It seems to be more alive than the rest of the plants around it because of the colour .. beige is more lively than blackish green ? or is that greenish black ?

When this picture uploaded .. it just struck me like a giant mother spider and her baby spider next to her. In reality it is Karly Rose fountain grass with a bronze sedge .. but how cute can it be ?

Fennel Under "Glass"

Our weather has been a bit of a handful lately. We had a mini ice storm with freezing rain. The actual colour of the day is white on white .. no blue sky,not even what you would call gray .. just white sky reflecting off white snow and ice. White on white. So I didn't quite get this picture to display the way it should, to do it justice.

This is one of my fennel plants in the garden that became "fennel under glass".

Are we owned by cats or salt rock lamps ?

OK ... I know any human that has been "owned" by a cat .. knows just THAT ! .. they own us and there is no two ways about it. We are totally smitten by them and there is no going around the issue. Funny enough I keep thinking we own them every so often .. go figure ?
Then I saw this picture .. as if from another person's view point ... and bang it hit me again ! They ... truly ... own US !
And just how many trinkets can you buy for your cats before you realize it is a vicious cycle of wanting to engage them in quality time ?? ; )

And then there are the pictures .... how many pictures can you take of the same subject matter .. aka .. "the girls" .. even that can get out of hand .. or is that CABIN FEVER I feel ?

Next is the salt lamp adventure ... I love mine ... so much that I had to get one for the family room and number one son's room .. the "guys" wanted a green light in theirs .. so what the heck .. I gave them what they wanted ! .. I still prefer that warm amber glow .. yellowish and orangish ? .. I really do find it soothing !