A study in black and white, bowed and broken

After several more days of snow, our landscape is a study in black, white, and grey…

Birch trees on the hillside: an arrangement in grey and black, minus Whistler’s mother.

with the occasional touch of green…

Spruce trees in the lower field

and yellow.

A touch of yellow on a broken ash tree.

So many trees are bowed…

Oak, maple, ash and spruce lean dangerously over the driveway.

or broken.

That stump used to be the bottom of a Schubert cherry tree.

The linden, a perfectly formed Platonic idea of treeness, is spreading dangerously. We will use cables to centre the weight of the branches.

Will it split? Please, no!

Heavy branches on the oak that we pruned so carefully in the summer are now leaning down to the ground, and the lopped off bits at the top are horribly visible.

The oak tree looks sad. So do I.

One of the old maples, planted over a hundred years ago in the days of Glen Villa Inn, has lost another major branch.

This old maple is now more trunk than tree. Is it time to remove it entirely, letting it end its life with dignity?

The leader on the phellodendron is broken. Perhaps the tree will survive but I doubt she will be shapely.

The berries indicate that this tree is a she tree. The three males around her are, happily, in good form.

And what about the huge ash tree that threatens to complete its fall and block our driveway? Every time I pass underneath, I hold my breath.

Thanks to the maple on the right, the ash tree has not yet finished falling. More chain sawing is required.

Still, touches of natural beauty are there, waiting to be seen. This birch catkins, breaking free of the ice, is one.

Icy branches and a birch catkin topped with snow

The sun (on the one day it shone) glinting on the barbed wire that entangles the Abenaki walkers is another.

Abenaki Walking: an art installation by Patterson Webster

And I can’t forget the apple at the top of the grass snake. It hangs there, summer and winter, red and shiny, waiting to be picked. The perfect symbol of imperfection in a garden.

The grass snake in winter: a shaggy reptile in need of a haircut. His eyes and tongue are hidden under the snow.

It’s too soon to know what long-term damage the ice storm will do. Perhaps the linden will recover, the oak tree produce new branches to replace the old. Perhaps. But the forecast isn’t good: freezing rain instead of snow.

And once I said I liked winter!