Images of the arty kind

[Paul T]

Fantastic pics, Cohan.  My wife enjoyed them as well (I just had to show her, all the pics in this topic are brilliant!!).  I'm with Luc on the one that drew my eye most.  That is an amazing growth of ice crystals!!    Any chance of you sending me a large version of that to my email so that I can look at the details.  In fact any of them would be appreciated.  That sort of crystal growth is something I've just never seen before, and the pics here are too small to get all the details.    Plus, I can look at the bigger versions as we head into summer and maybe I'll feel a little cooler.    Dreadful to think that we still have the heat of summer to come, and we've already had a 39^oC. 

[cohan]

thanks, robin, luc, paul--
i think the frost is probably the prettiest thing in winter..
someone showed me a pic yesterday from somewhere else (i presume down east or europe where its wetter) and the crystals were even much longer than we get here! i guess our fog just isnt as wet..

that plant with the longest crystals is an (ex)Epilobium-common fireweed- i was wondering if there were any fuzzy seeds left to hold that ice, though i thought all the fluff was long gone--if i remember i will look at that plant when i'm outside today..

paul--there are slightly larger versions, and a few more views at my picasa page,
http://picasaweb.google.ca/cactuscactus/December252009#
and i will send you a couple as well--i'll try original (full sized)version, if either my email or yours doesnt allow such a large file, i'll trim a couple a bit later on to send you..
glad to be of help getting through your summer...heat as a hardship is (mostly) outside my experience--35C with high humidity in toronto could be challenging, but to me only if indoors spaces werent well cooled, outside i didnt mind it...

[johnw]

Cohan, that 124742AA pic is flabbergasting !!  

Cohan  - That shot is fantastic. Is that solely the result of ice fog?

I have never seen ice fog.  Funny I was just reading on the internet that Halifax has 120 days of fog a year and it finished by saying "tourists will be heartened to know the fog rarely lasts more than 12 hours a day"! A bit of an exaggeration.

johnw  +1c and still overcast.

[cohan]

john, i better be careful on my use of weather terminology, without looking it up!
i'm assuming there was fog, though i didn't see it, since it didn't come into the yard, and i wasn't out during that time (overnight presumably)..
if there is a difference between ice fog and simply fog when its cold, i don't know!
i'll have to try to find some info to read up on the mechanisms; i'm assuming these fog patches, which drift about, and don't just settle in lowest areas (in fact we drive along a line of hills coming home from work and in suitable weather there are likely to be patches up there) are caused by temperature differentials, especially on days with a big difference from day to night temperatures, which is common here, and also when we have different air systems coming through, also common so near the mountains..
the fog is not coming off a body of water as there are none of any significance, and certainly nothing that is not frozen several feet down..

there are advantages to living out of sight of any neighbours: i forgot to check that fireweed plant from the photo in question when i was out sawing wood, so since i still had on longjohns (stylish black ones, thank you!) and wool socks, i just threw on a heavy coat, rubber boots, and went out to look!
there is no residual seed fuzz on the plant, and no longerterm ice or snow, just the papery seed capsule remnants--like dried grass blades, more or less, so that was all ice crystals from the presumed fog, long gone by now...
here are a couple of more shots -a closer view of another shot of the same plant, and a couple crops of another shot of frost on the branches; these are enhanced a bit for sharpness and contrast;
enlarging/cropping further to a closer view of the ice probably wouldnt help much, as these shots were handheld, super close will not be that clear..

paul--i'm still happy to send some full size pics if you want, but you probably wont be able to see much more than this, for the above reason..
EDIT: i added one more crop of original photo, which might show just a bit more of the structure; also sharpness and contrast enhanced..

[Paul T]

Fantastic stuff, Cohan.  Thanks for the pic you emailed me too.  I could still find heaps of detail in it by viewing it at various sizes.  Just amazing!!  I think I am very glad we don't get that here. 

[cohan]

Fantastic stuff, Cohan.  Thanks for the pic you emailed me too.  I could still find heaps of detail in it by viewing it at various sizes.  Just amazing!!  I think I am very glad we don't get that here. 

glad you enjoyed it/them, paul
unless you are driving in the fog--which of course happens, though its not usually a real problem right in my area, at least --need to drive slower, but you can see the road immediately in front of you, at least and its patchy, so you usually come out of it regularly, but--there was once last year that we couldnt find one of our turns onto a gravel road, coming home at night in the fog, until the second time going past again, very slowly...that might have been in fall rather than winter..
but as for this icey stuff--its just pretty, and is soon gone, its already cold when it happens, or it wouldnt, so it has no effect on comfort or plants or anything else (of course, note the 'already cold' part...lol)

[ranunculus]

Christmas Day 2009 ... from my daughter's house perched high above Whitworth, Lancashire.

[Paul T]

Cliff,

That looks more like something you'd see in parts of Australia at this time of year..... it looks like a bushfire scene.  Thankfully the widespread rain has put a stop to most of them for Christmas, which is excellent.... although there have been flood watches in various places as in some places they're getting more rain than they've had in a decade or longer.  You can never please everyone, can you. 

[mark smyth]

Bernard please start a new thread to show us photos of your garden in progress

[Giles]

Some Pinus pinea seedlings in the greenhouse:

[mark smyth]

Giles are those pine nuts?

[Giles]

Yes Mark.
Very big seeds, easy to grow, good for rock garden and bonsai.

[mark smyth]

Can those from supermarkets grow or only those in their kernal as found in macaw food?

[cohan]

Christmas Day 2009 ... from my daughter's house perched high above Whitworth, Lancashire.

looks like quite a perch! i can see why someone wants to keep those trees in the foreground pruned..

[Giles]

Mark,
I bought them as 'seeds' from a tree seed company, (Forestart).
They are bigger than the pine nuts I've seen in food shops, and I guess fresher/better looked after and therefore more likely to germinate well.
I've got some left over if you would like some.