The Barrens on a Blue-Sky Winter's Day

We have had warmer weather for a few days, and once again the snow has begun to melt. We awoke Sunday morning to dark clouds along the horizon, but a big wind started to blow, and it blew all those clouds away, leaving us with a blue-sky winter's day.

We took a short walk up into our local gameland, the Scotia Barrens. My husband jogged from there, while I hiked with my camera in hand.

The scene in this photo is just above the hill to the right of where I once saw seven salamanders walking on ice. On this day, the beaver ponds were mostly frozen over, but with melted areas along the edges. I wouldn't have felt safe to walk on them.

The woods were looking quite different than they did in last Sunday's moody, misty scene. There was no creeping ground fog, no sense of ghosts in the mist. Just blue sky and wind, a crisp January day.

And soon we are to be dropped into the deep freeze, so the weather man says, with temps in the single digits F (-13 C and possibly lower) coming for Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll be on the lookout for hoar frost!