Sunday. 12/28/14

Cloudy in the morning.  Slow clearing during the afternoon.  This is what the sky looked like around 2:30 PM.

Temperature below freezing overnight, but not a lot of moisture.  Just a droplet of ice still clinging to some wild highbush blueberries.

Mushrooms growing at the base of an oak.  Looks as if something has been eating on them.

Clouds to the north during our late afternoon walk.

Mostly clear sky to the south.

To participate in Nature Notes and/or find links to more nature photos, please click the logo above.

.

Sunday. 12/28/14

Saturday, 12/27/14

Mushrooms on dead tree.

A fairly soggy day in the Ozarks, not that we actually received all that much rain -- only around three-tenths of an inch.  Jo and the dogs got a little damp this morning.  They got caught by a drizzle while returning home on their morning walk.  Our afternoon walk was a little soggy too.  Don't know if you'd call it a heavy fog or a light drizzle, but you'd get wet if you stayed out in it for a while.

Temperature fell slowly all day, but remained above freezing until almost midnight.  Then, the wet steps and porch began getting slick with ice.  Our forecast contained a chance of snow, but that did not happen.

I cleaned out our wood stove and rebuilt the fire among other piddling chores accomplished today.

Wet leaves.

.

Saturday, 12/27/14

Friday, 12/26/14

Clouds returned.  Overcast all day.  Increasingly damp as the day progressed.  Periods of light mist off and on during the afternoon.  Light drizzle during the evening.  Gusty south wind most of the day, but it backed off to moderate during the evening.

South wind is producing higher temperatures as well as increased moisture.  Temperature steadily increased all day, including during the evening.  High for the day was 51°F/10°C at midnight.

Cut, loaded, brought home, unloaded and stacked a small load of firewood.

I often harvest firewood from fallen trees, but I do not think there is any usable firewood in this tree.  I'll leave it for the bugs and fungi.

.

Friday, 12/26/14

Christmas Day 2014

Today was the first day we've enjoyed significant sunshine in about a week.  Clear in the early AM, but clouds slowly moved back in as the day progressed.

Jo washed a load of clothes and was able to get them dried out on the clothesline in the sunshine.  Underwear you can hang on racks around the wood stove.  Sheets and towels are not so easily dried indoors.

Pines along our road out.

I think this cloud formation is called a mackerel or buttermilk sky, but I'm not certain.

Down near the house, a seep runs across the road, causing that section to stay wet and muddy all winter.

.

Christmas Day 2014

Tuesday, 12/23/14

December continues relatively mild, but cloudy and damp.  

The old song says some folks have Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.  We have pottery and underwear drying by a wood stove.

Mid-Afternoon: Sky quickly cleared to partly cloudy. Clouded back up again just as quickly.

Across Bear Creek Valley.

.

Tuesday, 12/23/14

Green Marvel Moth (Acronicta fallax - 9281)

Green Marvel Moth (Acronicta fallax - 9281)

Range:  Eastern North America.

Food:  Principal host plant is said to be Viburnum.

Links:

Butterflies and Moths of North America

Moth Photographers Group

BugGuide

.

Green Marvel Moth (Acronicta fallax - 9281)

Gray Skies Continue

Wednesday (12/17) dawned relatively clear, but with a red sky on the horizon.  Clouds soon moved back in to cover the sky, but not before Jo captured a photo of the walnut tree in our yard. 

Thursday (12/18) was overcast all day.  This was the view right after we turned around and headed back home on our afternoon walk.

The grass and weeds at the road's edge were wet with accumulated moisture.

.

Gray Skies Continue

Monday, 12/15/14

.9" of rain overnight.  Day dawned very foggy.

Partly cloudy with a gusty south wind blowing by late morning.

Clouds returned during the late afternoon.  A new cold front began moving through during the evening.  No additional rain.

.

Monday, 12/15/14

Sunday, 12/14/14

Veggie garden area with large sweetgum and smaller persimmon trees growing at the edge.  Were we totally hardcore gardeners, I suppose we'd cut down the trees growing so close to our garden so their roots would not grow into the garden beds, but we are "tree huggers" and just put up with the tree roots stealing nutrients from the beds.

High, thin clouds late morning and for most of the day.  South wind increasing.  A new cold front nearing.  Should arrive Monday.

A full schedule of fall shows; meant we did no fall garden housekeeping.  Jo took advantage of a nice winter afternoon to clean up the asparagus and corn beds.

.

Sunday, 12/14/14

Saturday, 12/13/14

After several days of typical winter gloom, overcast and fog, we enjoyed a few hours of mostly clear sky this afternoon -- a most pleasant surprise not in our forecast.




Unfortunately, the blue sky did not stick around for long.  By the time Jo and I took our afternoon walk at four o'clock, overcast and fog had returned.

.

Saturday, 12/13/14