The Last Ice Shot. As Promised.
Yes, that is a sun beam. I know. I took about 10 pictures of this too. I may see a pattern on where all my time goes in the days that I don’t physically go to work. Oh well. Don’t care. I like it. And now you can see what I see. Sleep sound. Dream sweet.
The Ice Curtain
This is from the front door. It was really cold when I was taking these pictures. Like, zero cold. But see how clear and blue the sky is? Such a trade off for all that thin atmosphere.
Another angle. The longer you look at these pictures the more they look like ice monsters.
Kind of the front. If I truly wanted to get the “front” angle, I would have to go stand in 2 feet of iced over snow drifts. No thanks. You’ll have to take my word that it’s pretty thick. It really doesn’t look all that impressive here, I will admit. But it goes all the way to the ground. That’s got to be something.
That’s the top. We really can’t even break it off right now, in fear that it might take the whole gutter down with it. I have a lot more but I’m going to stop here because you get the idea. I have been trying to get pictures of other people’s houses with the curtain of ice all the way across, but I haven’t had much luck photographing them. I better hurry though, it’s supposed to warm up to 50 degrees by next Wednesday. Fifty! Degrees. That seems wrong, but this is Chicago, so it will probably get to about 65 and cause a flash flood. In February. You heard it here first. Next post is going to be my own, personal, ode to self-interest, gratuitous icicle glamour shot. Mostly so I have something pretty to look at when I view my site, in case I get caught up in my job tomorrow and have to leave it as the title shot for a few days. I’m on call this weekend so you never know. And blue is my favorite color, tranquil and serene, in case that wasn’t apparent. Thanks for checking in and leaving a kind comment. It’s those small things that really make you feel connected in this big world. Have a great night. Stay warm and toasty wherever you are. Later.
Drop Picture With Brick
I always say, if you are going to do it, over do it. Words, pictures, icicles. We have a big one hanging off the corner of the house. This is a small part of the large object. The tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Believe me, I got pictures of that too. No worries. I’m doling it out slow, so as not to cause a mass influx of views to this site, thereby potentially shutting down the system with all the people crazily clicking and scrolling, hungry for snow and dripping ice pics in the dead of winter. In the Midwest. From a stranger. Especially since most people in this general area of the world can look outside and see it for themselves in real time and feel the cold that comes along with all this natural beauty. Blabbity blab. There I go again. Let me filter and sift through more pics and be back. Later.
Only Took 24 Tries
This is with the camera. And since winter is apparently here for a while longer, including more snowfall Sunday night/Monday morning, I thought I’d take this weekend to download all the snow pics I took and mad-post them before the 40 degree thaw I hear is supposed to come sometime next week and melt the mountains and piles that are building up on our corners and grassy areas. It’s cold now, but sunny. The girl had her first driving experience today and she wants to drive more. So here we go. Below is another water drop pic. More greatness to be had, later.
101 Birds
101 visible birds. I counted them. At least I tried to count them. I may not be exact, because if you click it and enlarge it, there are a lot of spots and smudgy parts that look like birds but could be part of another bird or a camera flaw or a picture defect. I used my best judgement. Plus, they were already pretty far away when I had the genius idea to take the picture. There were SO many I couldn’t believe it. This is just one shot that I finally thought to take. I just stood there in awe of nature and the flight of the weather bound. They were loud too. Geese ya know. Flying south. And truthfully I was thinking that with so many flying over my head, what if one, or 10, pooped on me? Would that still be considered good luck? I was paralyzed by the sound and sheer numbers. I was doomed until I shook myself out of the bird haze to grab my phone. Anyway that’s my rough count of what I captured in the frame. Feel free to waste just as much time as I did counting them over if you feel strongly about this number issue and send me your best estimate. There’s no wrong answer. Here’s the small wave that flew by right after. Late to the party, but just as loud. 18 more. Later.
Post Tornado. Skeleton Trees.
Lots of noise. A strange, continuous roaring sound to the north of our location. Sirens everywhere. No actual sighting in my town. Confirmed visuals in Coal City to the South and Frankfort to the west. And as everyone knows by now, Washington, IL, out in the middle there. It is VERY windy now. If you turn on the TV to the Bears game in Chicago, you can see that our wind is extra windy. In case we forgot that our weather patterns here in the Midwest don’t just stroll in all leisurely-like, changing over the course of a few days or even hours; but prefer to burst out of the atmosphere like fireworks in the sky. Boom, flash, done. It’s dark. It’s light. It’s dark again. One minute you are outside just milling around and taking pictures, marveling at nature in all its raw beauty, and the next minute a powerful gust of wind crackles through the high branches of your fragile, breaking trees, pushing you, the garbage cans, and one of the plastic chairs you are standing next to, across the patio, almost giving you a heart attack. I literally covered my head because I thought a limb was coming down. I know the sound. So you decide you should probably go inside and close all the windows because it was 65 degrees mere minutes ago and now its 50 with all your blinds blowing inside the windows trying to come off the hinges. I have work to start and finish because I wasted my day on all this weather and I may slip in a drink or two to count my blessings tonight with my family. Say a quick prayer, send a thought, or help if you can, for our neighbors to the south. It’s getting dark now and the weather looks like it’s staying. Good luck. Stay safe. Winter is pretty much here. Only four or five more months until it’s spring. Cold hands, warm hearts. I think we say something like that. Later.
More Random Wild Life. For My Mom.
Chipmunks.
Rabbits. This is the mom I believe. She looks kind of beat.
Those ears kill me. They are gigantic. Is this technically a “hare”? Or a jackrabbit? Or just a plain, old, midwest rabbit? Probably doesn’t matter. I have a few more:
This was before babies. She (?) would be sitting out there in the rocks every day when we would leave and sometimes when we would come home. I can only assume it was a nice warm spot by the house. Our walls are literally brick and drywall thin. And our crappy metal windows basically blow air in all year round. It only makes sense that the hot air was coming through just as well. On the upside, I tell my family that we will never die of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Too many leaks in the infrastructure. One less thing ya know?
The nest of babies. We found it by mistake. The one closest to the front obviously did not make it. But the other two were squirming around. There may have been three at one time but we have only seen two in the yard on a regular basis. Here’s one:
Isn’t that precious?
This is like one of those “find-the-rabbit-in-this-picture” pictures. Highlights magazine. Or am I the only one out here old enough to know about this?
Frog.
Another frog.
Let’s keep working this water theme. Ducks. And baby ducks.
Mom and dad ducks.
City ducks. Chicago Lock Ducks. That’s prob a good name for some kind of team. The Chicago Lock Ducks! Swimming into stadiums near you! Eh. Let’s just post the pics.
To wrap up this very long segment, I will end with the fish and turtles inside of our house. The time is ticking away and my daughter wants to go out. Here is the old stuff and current stuff. Oscars, from young to old. Then the turtles, in order of growth.
When you come up to the tank, they swim to the glass to see you. So friendly like. We had 4. Now we only have 2. Sad. What’s really sad is that we are kind of waiting for the other two, to, ummm, perish, if you will. They live forever and you can’t put anything new into the tank with them because they will attack and kill it. Not all, Great White shark attack killing, or gnashing teeth piranha swarming blood bath, no, they just head butt and try to clamp down with their giant mouths and take pieces out of the other fish until the poor sucker cowers into a corner, sinks to the bottom of the tank and die. Nice fish huh?
Awwwww. So cute.
Turtle as art. This is how they look now.
All awkward and on top of each other. Their tank is really too small now.
Just as an extra note to anyone that has turtles and a turtle tank that gets really dirty: Spend the 8 dollars on this moss ball thing. It really works. It looks ridiculous, and you are basically paying for something you could scoop out of a creek at the Forest Preserve, but hey, nature isn’t always pretty.
So there ya go mom! I saved all the squirrel pictures and the skulking black cat that prowls around our backyard for their own separate posts. And there is A LOT. The squirrels we have in our yard are very crazy, so they need their own special column here. And the cat is just a cat, but I have various pictures of it doing predator-like things that I feel make it worthy of its own posting too. Plus, this is like 3 pages long. It’s enough. And I found more birds and flowers. And inanimate animals. I really like taking pictures of statues and fake animals too apparently. It’s a disease. It’s also 85 degrees and Saturday afternoon, and my day off. I need to get up out of this house and hit the streets. There is shopping to be shopped, dinner to be gotten, and drinks to be drank. Everyone have a safe night and I will post more. Later.
just shy of pretty 