Hey, It's February, Let's Have some Snow

Christmas Eve Fog

It was foggy today - this Christmas Eve day. But fog and ice can be very nice.

Winter Storm

South Skunk River Snow

Winter Pond (No Trespassing)

No Trespassing (no worries. I was on the right side of the fence.)

Snowfall - January 25

What a lovely afternoon.

January on the Street where I Live

First Snow of February

We haven't had a lot of snow in central Iowa this winter, not until yesterday.  Now we're covered.  It's nice enough to look at, but it does make for a lot of work.  I'm grateful to my neighbor who loaned me the use of his snow thrower. It saved me about four hours of work and a trip the the chiropractor.

Here are some more photos from this recent snowfall.

Background Images for Everyone - 2015 - Week 6

Here is this week's free background image.  It's yours.  Its' free.  I only ask that you share it freely and that you tell others that you found it here.

Into the White

I ventured out into the white this afternoon for a few photos:

Heavy Snow

We're expected to get 7 - 10 inches of snow tonight.  It's glorious.

This was a 21 second exposure at f/32 and ISO 400.

Creating the Universe in My Backyard

It was snowing this evening, blizzard conditions across much of the state.  So I did what any normal person would do.  I created the universe in my backyard.

And I did it all with my camera, a lamp, and a fog machine.

One for a Snow Day

Snow Day by Jeff Carter

Snowfall on the Crab Apple Tree

We had a pretty heavy snowfall last night - heavy enough that most of the churches in our area called off their services.  But I made some phone calls to our members and several of them said that they still wanted to try to get out - so we went ahead with our worship service this morning.

As tricky as the snow made the driving, I still think it looks rather nice.  This is the same crab apple tree in my neighbor's yard that have featured in several of my other photos.

Crab Apple Tree in December

It snowed here yesterday afternoon.  All afternoon and into the evening.  Our first snow was just barely a ground cover - but this, this snow fell down and covered everything. Fortunately it was a fine, dry, powdery snow.  Light and easy to shovel.  I even saw someone in our neighborhood using a leaf blower to blow the snow off his driveway.

I took my camera and took some pictures.  Including one of my neighbor's crab apple tree.  There's nothing particularly special about this tree.  It's just close and convenient and provided an interesting subject for a variety of photos.

This one (like many of my other photographs) is for sale - either as a digital download ($2.99) or as a print.  And there are lots of options - you can have it printed on canvas, archival quality paper, acrylic, a mirror, or a sheet of birchwood.  You can also choose from four sizes (S, M, L, XL) and there are a variety of framing options.  The prices vary according to the different options, but they're all pretty reasonable.

And - what is more - my portion of these sales is given to the Salvation Army of Newton, Iowa.  You can pick up some nice artwork - the Salvation Army gets money to continue its work.  Everyone wins.

Crab Apple Tree in December by Jeff Carter

See -the Plagiarism - Amid the Winter's Snow

Do you remember yesterday, when I said that it hadn't snowed very much here in Fairmont, Minnesota?
Well that has changed.

It has been snowing all morning. And I've been watching it.  I stood in the entry way of the Hy-Vee grocery store this morning, playing Christmas songs on my baritone at one of The Salvation Army's kettles.  As I played I watched thorough the doors as it began to snow.  At first it was just a few little flakes, small and hard to see, but that quickly changed into thick fluffy snow.  Several people commented that "Now it feels like Christmas."

But something's been bothering me this morning.

One of the Christmas songs that I played was See Amid the Winter's Snow (also sometimes known as a Hymn for Christmas Day) with lyrics by Edward Caswall (1814 - 1878) and music by John Stainer (1840 - 1901).





Now it's a nice enough little song... but apparently it worked it's way into my unconscious thinking  - and when I wrote my Christmas carol this year - Lord of Heaven Come Near  - I "borrowed" a couple of measures without realizing it.

The first two measures of the chorus in See Amid the Winter's Snow  are exactly the same as measures 7 and 8 of my Lord of Heaven Come Near - You can use these to links to compare them.

Ooops!  I didn't intend to lift those measures....


But I don't feel to bad about it.  1) my melody is very different than Stainer's- even with these two measures.  His melody is a straight forward melody in common time (4/4).  Mine is, as someone has described it, an "erratic" melody that switches back and forth between 4/4 and 3/4.

And  2) this kind of musical similarity happens all the time.  I can't sing Give Thanks by Don Moen without hearing Go West by the Village People (though I prefer the Pet Shop Boys' cover...)

Snowfall

We've had our first snowfall here in Fairmont, Minnesota.  It came Saturday morning with all the wind and furry of a cold Minnesota winter.  My son and I watched the snow fall as we stood outside the Hy-Vee grocery story with our horns, playing Christmas carols at one of the Salvation Army's red kettles.

Most of this frist snow has already melted away but it was as nice as it was fleeting.

Here's a bit of music to celebrate the first snowfall.



If you like it, it is free for you to download and to share with others.

It was made with a couple of sounds from the Freesound Project:

Game Music Cell 

Old Cello Pizzicato 

If you would like to make a donation to support the work of The Salvation Army in Fairmont, Minnesota (or the Salvation Army unit in your area) you can do that via this handy-dandy-online-kettle.
Thank you very much.

Snow Day

Because I was slated to host a live radio broadcast from our building this morning, I was up at the ungodly hour of 5AM.  It wouldn't take very much to convince me that God is sleeping (like the rest of us should be) at 5AM.  It's a mornful, despicable hour.  It was still dark and the wind was howling outside.  We were knee deep in a blizzard.  And I do mean knee deep.  The snow drift in the driveway was up to my knees, and higher in some places.  There was no way I was going to get the van down the driveway to the roads (which hadn't been plowed yet, either).

So I called the radio station to tell them that I would not be able to make it to the program.  Neither could they, as it turned out.  And then I went back to bed for a while.  Nice.

Later in the afternoon I went out with the snowblower to clear off the driveway.  That John Deere snowblower in the garage is a beast - the snow beast, I call it - but it cleared the driveway without a problem.  It threw the snow into the air, where the still blowing winds carried it into the neighbor's driveway. The kids and the dogs played in the yard, tromping around in the snow.  Emma and Dune dug out a snow-fort in the backyard where the drifts are at least 5 feet high.

Mikey spent the afternoon baking: cookies, chex-mix, etc...  She wouldn't let me eat too many of the cookies.  They're for the volunteers who wil help with the food and toy distribution.   I did sneak a few of them when she wasn't looking.  Good cookies.

If you have to have a snow day, that's the way to do it.