Early morning frost, birds, & a skunk

It was a beautiful morning. A clear sky with a bright sun rising above the horizon. I was a little late setting out to do my chores, but the beauty of the beginning day prompted me to take my camera with me in the hopes of capturing some good shots.












There was a heavy frost on everything in the bottom, the result of moist air and below-freezing temperatures. When you view a frosted blade of grass closely, you discover that the frost is made up of very small ice crystals. These crystals catch the light of the sun and sparkle.

It was fun trying to capture the beauty of the morning and the little intricacies that exist all around us. I’m still learning how to do it well, but it’s a fun process. 

The birds were happily flitting about this morning, too. We have a variety of different types around here. Many times when I’ve been out early of a morning during hunting season, I’ve noticed that they all seem to wake up about the same time. With the 10x optical zoom on my camera and the 5x digital zoom, I was able to get close enough to snap some bird photos. One of them was a pileated woodpecker. They make a lot of noise as they fly from tree to tree. They’re good-sized birds.

Later in the morning after breakfast, Danny came over and asked if I would look at something. He said it was an animal he caught in a trap, and he wanted to know what it was. He said it was black with a white spot on its head. I thought skunk. That’s what it was. We let it go, successfully avoiding being sprayed. The little guy didn’t seem too concerned about us and gladly trotted away.

[I used Windows Live Writer to compose this blog post. This is a new tool for me – I just downloaded it today. It handles photos quite well, but there are some quirks in text editing which I hope to figure out as I use it more.]

Sabbath

It's the seventh day of the week, commonly known as Saturday. According to the Bible, which is quite clear, that's the Sabbath. God set aside the seventh day at creation. My family and I seek to honor the seventh day as the Sabbath by setting aside our physical labor and resting. It's God's Sabbath, and He made it for us. It is a blessing. I've encouraged people to set aside one day a week to rest just for the physical and emotional benefits of doing so. I can't imagine working without a weekly rest.

This morning is a beautiful, crisp morning. The temperature was near 20 degrees when I went to do my morning chores (these must be done even on the Sabbath) of milking the cow, feeding her, and feeding the turkeys. Currently, the temperature is rising above freezing. With the clear sky and cold overnight temperatures, there was a nice frost on everything this morning.

I took a photo of the morning from my back porch, looking toward our ridge. It's much nicer in person, of course.