Snow Morning

On Wednesday night, the snow came. Day after freezing day had hardened the ground, turned water into ice and chilled us to the bone with raw winds from the north and east.

Thursday morning, and the world was utterly still. Thick snow lay on every surface and for birds and animals outside, there was nothing to eat. Out into the whiteness I trudged, pushing a wheelbarrow of hay across stiff, unyielding snow to feed ponies waiting in their fields. They stood quite still and seemed almost stunned by the cold.

Around the garden, snow layered leaf, seed head , fruit and branch.

Tender leaves of a Japanese acer brave the snow.

The solar panels were taking a holiday.

Shapes and structures : snow covered palm,

twisted stems of Tortured Willow,

Camelia leaves,

bright berries of the Ballerina Rose

and Bay branches droop, weighed down by a blanket of white.

Sweeping branches frame the fields and hedgerow trees.

Through the Lime Tree........

....and hedgerow hawthorns spike against grey skies.

Woody finishes his breakfast.......

He is glad of a fleecy under-rug as icicles hang from his outer blanket.

Th roof net on the fruit cage makes a hammock for the snow.......

Water troughs, where ice needs breaking with a metal mallet to find the water underneath.

The Liquid Amber with a coat of snow..........

...and we watch the brittle branches, wondering if they will snap beneath an unaccustomed weight of winter snow.