Holly Berries in the Snow

It was Black Friday, one of the biggest sales days of the year in the U.S. We don't usually do much Black Friday shopping, but this is the day each year that the local auto stores offer deep discounts on certain items, and my husband likes to stock up on things like oil and filters. So we decided to go into town and run a few errands which included grocery shopping (just a tip: on the day after Thanksgiving, there is NOBODY in the grocery stores).

In between all of that, we managed to fit in a 20-minutes stop at the Arboretum, which was covered in snow from our first measurable snowfall. I only had my little camera with me - my original digital camera, the Canon SX 120 IS - because I hadn't really been planning on any major photo shoots.

Monday was a summer-like day, very mild, and my husband and I took the afternoon off to enjoy the weather and to go wading in Bald Eagle creek. We then got a major snowstorm on Wednesday which gave us about four inches locally. And it has snowed a little bit every day since then. We tumbled right from summer straight into the heart of winter!

There were few people at the Arboretum, and the skies were overcast and gray. There was ice on the lily pond and it wasn't looking as golden as it had the other day. It was the first snow for the children's garden which opened just this past summer, and we spent a few minutes there, checking things out. The solar clock told cold time. The witness tree overlooked a landscape of white.

The only major color in the whole scene was the bright red berries. There were berries in planters by snow-covered benches, and in the fragrance garden, and by the parking lot. And so I snapped a few photos of the beautiful berries in the snow. This particular batch is holly, with its pretty, sculptured, waxy leaves. And so the tune to accompany this shot just has to be that lovely old carol, given a new twist by an amazingly talented pianist. The soundtrack is George Winston, The Holly and the Ivy.

P.S. You will all be thrilled to hear we are now well stocked on oil and filters. (I know - this is an exciting moment! Be still, my beating heart!) The only Black Friday shopping I did myself was to purchase a 4 TB external hard drive online to hold . . . yep, you guessed it . . . back-up copies of my iPhoto library. So here's to adequate storage space for all of those photos, hooray!