Snow

When Saturday morning dawned with two inches of snow on the ground, I set out for a local nature preserve with camera in hand.  (All right, it wasn't exactly dawn; it was rather closer to noon.  But you get the idea.)

I’ve always liked taking pictures in the woods with fresh snow on the ground, and the first week of December is unusually early for snow accumulations in this part of the country.  The sky was completely overcast, and there was almost no wind at all, and it was a wet, clumpy snow, so the tree branches and even some of the trunks were still covered, creating a landscape of grey lines on white.

I would include a photo, only I didn’t take any.  As soon as I got out of my car at the park I spotted a pair of evergreens flanking the trail that led to the nature center, their boughs laden with snow.  Remembering that I had wanted some reference shots of just such a scene for a drawing, I pulled out my camera and turned it on, only to find that the batteries, which I had fully charged right before leaving the house, were already dead.

Fortunately, I had brought along spares, also fully charged.  Unfortunately, these were also dead (apparently they're older than I thought and simply won't take a charge anymore).  On the bright side, since I was still in the parking lot when I discovered this, I was able to leave my camera and Gorillapod in the car, rather than carrying useless equipment a couple of miles through the snow.  And it was a perfect day for a walk in the woods, with or without a camera.