The Grass Was Greener

While this is a portrait of Blaze, Bridger’s POA (a Pony of the Americas – basically an Appaloosa in miniature), it is also an afternoon flashback, to a time when the grass was green. To when there was grass to be green! In the past we would have noticed Blaze’s eager expression, his black and white and pink coloring, his ratty old halter… This time when we saw this photo, Bridger and I both thought, “Wow, look how green that grass is!”

Back_Forty_100110_4890-Blaze

Blaze - Study in Black & White & Green - October 2010

We know Blaze and his buddies join us in hoping La Nina will relent and we will soon see green grass growing in the pastures.

Frost Flower!

I always mentally referred to these icy extrusions as frost flowers, but had never read anything about them.

Back_Forty_Winter2012_7059-FrostFlower

aka Crystallofolia

Inspired by my friend Travis’ success just Googling the word or phrase that comes to mind, I tried typing frost flower in the search field… Guess what?  These structures are commonly referred to as –  frost flowers! They also have a scientific name, apparently: Crystallofolia. This website was particularly detailed: http://w3.biosci.utexas.edu/prc/VEVI3/crystallofolia.html