HOLDOVERS AND TUMBLES

RUGOSA ROSE HIPS

AMERICAN CHESTNUT EMPTY NUT HUSK

MOUNTAIN ASH BERRIES

SUMAC SEED HEADS

BLACK LOCUST SEED PODS

NORTHERN PIN OAK DRIED LEAVES

Saturday, 8:30 AM. 18 degrees F, wind variable, light.  The sky is partly cloudy with some weather apparently approaching slowly from the west.  The humidity is 75% and the barometer is pretty high, at  30.36".  It looks like it will be another day of melting, of which we could use about a month.
   We usually think of winter as  a pretty sterile season, but if we look around a bit we see all kinds of evidence of life, either dormant or holdovers from the last growing season.  I present evidence of the latter, all found within a short walk of my front door.  And there are many, many more such interesting objects of nature to be found in the winter landscape, that I will post as winter withers away.
   I have to admit that even ten years ago I wouldn't have been  paying close attention to such incidentals of winter nature.  I would have been jogging, trying to get my heart rate up over something or other that was supposedly good for me, and I would have been concentrating on not falling on the slippery road.  Run, rush, accomplish this task or goal every waking moment.  That's O.K., but a few aches and pains to slow me down and the final realization that I am not immortal has made me a much better observer and a lot more reflective.  Too bad I had to take so many tumbles to get there.