big snow coming?

The blizzard warnings are out, but hopefully we will miss the worst of it.  This is the woods this morning as it became light and the snow became heavier.  It is winter!

We braved the woods on Thanksgiving

Yes, it was a safe and happy US Thanksgiving weekend, the drive from Milwaukee and back for Neil and Jane and Paca, the dog, and the walk in the woods for Jane, Neil, Gene, and me and the two dogs.  Do you think our bright colors helped?  We did not hear any shooting that day, but gunfire was heard this morning, the next to the last day of Michigan firearms deer hunting season.

No umbrage please on ABC Wednesday

Utterly lame for ABC Wednesday is this picture of Willow pausing, undecided, at the crossroads in the umbratic woods.  Please don't take umbrage since there is so very little umber in the woods these days with the recent rains producing ubiquitous green as well as the need for an umbrella most days.  Anticipating next week's ABC's is the light in the background above the vernal pond.

P.S. umber is another of those words morphing from describing the color of earth, dark or reddish brown, to an adjective meaning shady to another noun describing the state of taking offense, as in a dark mood?!   And the etymology from the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin umbraticum, neuter of umbraticus of shade, from umbratus, past participle of umbrare to shade, from umbra shade, shadow; akin to Lithuanian unksmė shadow.

Once again thank you to ABC Wednesday crew for sending me searching for words to justify my posting a photo of Willow!

Redbuds, the understory in the spring woods

One of the special sights of a Michigan spring is the appearance of the Redbud trees in the woods.  The bright purple-pink flowers are small and delicate and bloom on the branches of the treee.  They proceed the heart-shaped leaves which are just now appearing.  This photo is the woods you enter from the Cowling Rd bridge of yesterday's Sunday Bridge Series brought to us by that excellent photographer and purveyor of fine coffees, Louis la Vache.  Visit him at: the San Francisco Bay Daily Photo

A closeup of the Redbud flowers and the emerging leaves at our house.

the forest floor

Beth from Corey Lake Orchards showed me this section of woods next to one of the vineyards and just last night I learned that it is part of a friend's 25 acres.  Pictured of course are the marvelous trillium.   I have never seen so many  in one place, and we have even traveled up to Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore to see as many as we could!  This is the woods of the Squirrel Corn and Spring Beauty and tomorrow I will post the Jack in the Pulpit.
This morning on our walk Willow and I searched the cornfields for the cranes (Sand Hill).  We could see them in the distance along with a lone deer.  But I couldn't get close enough for a good photo. 
A pair had flown over us as we stood in the driveway yesterday talking to a friend whose tomato seedlings we had been babysitting while she was away for the weekend.  I did not have my camera with me.  Drats!