Trees Etched in Ice

Pennsylvania has many beauties to reveal to us, even in the darkest season of the year. Come, take a walk with me, and I will show you a few of them.

My husband and I went up to Gamelands 176, the Scotia Barrens, in the morning. He rode his bicycle and then jogged. I walked, with camera. What started out as merely a gray morning turned into a soaking drizzle by the time we arrived back home. I was glad to have my umbrella.

The first thing I spotted when we got there was a set of puddles with some strange images rendered inside them. Are you an artist? Do you consider yourself a good one? Can YOU etch drawings of a tree row INSIDE the frozen puddles?

There is no snow here; only barren, muddy ground. The gameland ponds are nearly frozen over in spots, but there is still plenty of room for reflections of our brown and green world. (See the extras.)

As we were finally leaving the gamelands to head home, my husband insisted that I look upward. Above us, on an electric pylon, sat a group of buzzards all in a row, quietly considering us.

We turned from that pylon and headed down the hill. And looked up again to discover: the same group of buzzards had moved ahead of us down the hill, silently somehow.

It was like a creepy moment out of the film The Birds. They just suddenly . . . reappeared, with no sound or effort. You may see the buzzard/pylon shot in the extras, as well. Is it my imagination, or do they look a little . . . judgy?  ;-)

The soundtrack song is for the image above. Inside the winter ice is etched the memory of trees. So let's have that be the song, by Enya: The Memory of Trees.