116: Icy cold

(Winter trees.)

I love the way the days this month have lined up so well with my challenge dates.  Day 116 on the 16th.  It makes me feel more balanced than it ought to.

(In the snow cave.)

Yesterday’s warm-up brought today’s cool-down.  The slight melting packed the snow, making everything crunchy and a little icy.  It’s very pretty in the sunlight.

(Creekside blues.)

It’s 18 degrees outside right now.  Feels like 8, they say, when you figure in the wind chill factor.  It feels almost that cold inside right now, too.  We had a fire going in the fireplace and the wind caused a downdraft that brought a lot smoke into the house.  We had to open a window to air things out.  Brrrr!

(Tungsten view of the pond.)

It’s going down to near zero tonight, but we’ll be back up to 30 tomorrow.  Thank goodness.  The 90 minutes of cross-country skiing lesson is tomorrow.

But let’s warm things up…

(Today’s view of the pond.)

Not a lot.   Just enough so things look as they should.

(Still cold.  Just not as blue.)

I played with tungsten in the manual mode while out and about today.  I will probably appreciate the icy blue look more in August when it’s hot and humid here.

(Chickadee.)

This black-capped chickadee followed me on my walk today.  I don’t know if he was curious about me and where I was going or if he thought I might have brought some food along.  I’ll have to remember to bring food with me next time.  Just in case.

Here is a cool fact about the black-capped chickadee courtesy of All About Birds:

Every autumn Black-capped Chickadees allow brain neurons containing old information to die, replacing them with new neurons so they can adapt to changes in their social flocks and environment even with their tiny brains.

(Mourning Dove.)

Looks like the smoke finally cleared.  I think I’ll go watch the birds for a while, see who shows up at the feeder.  One of these days I’m going to capture the brilliant red male cardinal.  He sure is a shy guy.