blueberry bush bowed

blueberry bush bowed

beneath snow on top of ice --

branch-breaking wind

Rain turning to sleet, then snow, all night and now all day. The wet, heavy snow melding with the ice, falling in crusty clumps from branches.

Snow piled a hand high on the gate. Changing from flat flakes to fine as the wind shifts and the temperature drops.

Snow pillows on top of the solar lights. They won't be turning on tonight.

Birds busy at the feeders. A Junco waits his turn in the snow-festooned branches of a star magnolia, next to a nest from last summer.

Doesn't it look like a snow baby leaning out of the nest to chat with the snow bird?

fat white flakes falling

fat white flakes falling

on plowed shoulders where flocks of

dark-eyed juncos peck

at grass, flurry up, flashing

white sides of tails and bellies

No wild turkeys in the fields since the blizzard, but after the plow scraped of the snow from the shoulders of the roads, flocks of juncos gather to peck at grass and gravel. With their dark gray backs they are nearly invisible against the barren ground, but when I pass they fly up in a flurry, flashing the white sides of their tails and white bellies.