When the sky is gray and the mood is blue, our hearts and minds get a healthy boost at every bit of colour we discover walking over snow and ice. That happens every time the heavy cloud cover is rolled back, although just for a short moment, and the sun lights up the landscape from a blue sky. The rosehips, all dressed in red coats, are particularly pleasing to the winter-worn-out eyes Enjoy.
The boat dock beams lie high and dry on the beach, waiting for the water level to rise at the beginning of the spring run-offs. They are connected with iron rings that can be moved in all directions. I turned one ring toward Mt. Ingersoll and took this landscape photo. Enjoy.
I recently discovered a twig of a chestnut tree that showed the typical signs of budding we usually observe in early spring. For January, however, such an occurrence is highly unusual. I took a lot of pictures looking for clarity and sharpness. When one photo turned out to be to my liking, I noticed that the background was blurry due to the large aperture opening. Also, I wanted a brighter and more cheerful image.
In my archives, I found a winter scene from last year that looked promising as a better background.
Both went into my Affinity Photo editor. I selected and copied the twig with its impressive bud to the clipboard. Then I cropped the picture above to remove all distracting elements from the composition with the twig. Then I pasted the selected twig into the winter landscape, resized, moved it to the left, and even changed the angle. The result is the third picture. Enjoy.
Unusually mild weather has been dominating our January weather. I recently spotted some beautiful droplets hanging from a rosehip twig on a hike at the Fauquier boat dock. Upon closer inspection, I discovered in the reflective lens a few fir trees inside the droplet. Enjoy.
A little bit of green (Hope) provided by the Ponderosa pine tree and a sprinkle of red (Love) with courtesy from the rose hips go a long way to cheer up our hearts on a soggy, rainy winter day in the Kootenays. Temperatures 10 degrees above normal in April are quite common but not in January in our neck of the woods. I took the two photos 30 minutes before dark. Enjoy.
The wood bridge is part of the Fauquier Golf Course and allows the players to cross Heart Creek to access one of the more difficult tee-offs. Now the golf course is inviting a few hardy individuals like my wife and me and the occasional gaggle of geese looking for the green stuff under the snow.
The Peter and Gertrud Klopp Family 