The Icing Of December ...

“Music comes from an icicle as it melts, to live again as spring water.”

          ~ Henry Williamson

             ~ 1895-1977

      ~ English army officer, naturalist, farmer & ruralist writer

Cascading waters are frozen in harmony with early winter beauty on a late December afternoon when I captured this rich tone monochrome shot as temperatures rose to near 50 degrees along the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

 

I captured this shot this after setting out from the Cementon Trailhead of the D&L Trail in Cementon, Pennsylvania, part of the Asher F. Boyer Eagle Trail section of the D&L.

 

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Fording Winter ...

“How many lessons of faith and beauty should we lose, if there were no winter in our year!”

               ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson

                      ~ 1823-1911

                  ~from “April Days”

                         ~ 1861

A vehicle crosses the icy waters at the Ford of the Jordan Creek, one of my very favorite places to be and to photograph, at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

I shot this frosty scene as the light of the looming sunset waltzes on the icy waters soon after the historic January Blizzard of 2016. In a winter shorn of snow until the blizzard, the storm plonked 31 inches of snow on nearby Allentown in a 24 hour period.

 For more than 50 years visitors have enjoyed driving through the Jordan Creek. Kids and kids at heart cite “Crossing the Water” as one of their fondest memories.

 

The Fire & The Frost ...

“It is the life of the crystal,

the architect of the flake,

the fire of the frost,

the soul of the sunbeam,

This crisp winter air is full of it.”

   ~ John Burroughs

   ~ 1837-1921

   ~ “Winter Sunshine”

    ~ 1875

The fire of the frost and the soul of the sunbeam kiss at sunset, painting a fiery frozen beauty at one of the highest elevations at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

This is my abstract view of a snowy scene I shot soon after the historic January Blizzard of 2016.
In a winter shorn of snow until the blizzard, the storm plonked 31 inches of snow on nearby
Allentown in a 24 hour period.