A Snowy Winter Adventure

Those of the family not busy with other things trekked out into the cold, snowy forest for a winter adventure. The bare trees gave up their secrets, such as this hornet's nest:


Here's a view from below. If you look real hard you can see the cells inside:

We came across an eensy mailbox in the middle of nowhere:

They're hard to make out, but there are squirrel tracks in the snow to the right of the mailbox. I guess the mailbox belongs to Mr. Squirrel. Maybe he mail-orders exotic nuts from tropical locals. We checked, but the box was empty. After all, it's Sunday.

We came across some feathers in the snow looking as if some poor bird had been snatched out of the air by an owl or a hawk, mid-flight, and these feathers drifted down, leaving the only evidence of the poor bird's plight.

Such a silent, fluffy, snowy, sad thing (unless you're the hawk or the owl, then it's a triumphant, yummy thing).

My dog waited patiently, finding a place lie down while we snapped pictures:

On the way back home, my daughter spotted a coyote way out in the fallow farmer's field:

She got close enough to snap a few pictures:

He (or she) was hunting a mouse or a vole out in the field:

My daughter finally got too close and the coyote ran off into the woods.

Closer to home, the more tame trees are trying to uphold their burdens of snow:

Now I'm going to go have a nice hot mug of tea or coffee or hot cocoa. Just so long as it's hot.