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
December and January have been roller coaster months as far as temperatures go. We've had bitter cold nights, unseasonably warm days and a fair bit of rain, freezing rain and snow. Below are some frosty window scenes interspersed with general images of winter in Peterborough.
Pour yourself a coffee, bundle up for the cold and enjoy the photos.
The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A dull day serves as a monochrome backdrop for winter's fine artwork.
Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder--no matter how old you became and how much you'd seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered. ~ Candace Bushnell
A crisp winter morning along the shores of Little Lake
How beautiful thy frosty morn,
When brilliant gems each feathery thorn!
~ Bernard Barton
This is how my window appeared one morning as the sun was just beginning to rise.
A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
~ Carl Reiner
Every now and then, Donald Trump actually forgets to end one of his tweets with an exclamation point. Here's one which escaped his incessant Twitter fingers. This errant, frozen punctuation mark was found floating past the Peterborough shoreline. "Sad!"
The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
This frosty window with the moon behind it reminded me of lemmings about to throw themselves off a cliff. Thankfully. there's a feathery-soft landing awaiting them.
Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. ~ Willa Cather
The view across the river and lake will take your eye to the east side of the city where Quaker Oats is busy churning out overly-sweet-smelling oatmeal.
What miracle of weird transforming
Is this wild work of frost and light,
This glimpse of glory infinite?
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
There was a lot of ice on our streets on this day. We'd had hours of freezing rain overnight and we awoke to this on our window panes. My son, Alex was staying with me and had plans to drive home that day. This page which appeared in my Facebook feed convinced him to wait until the day warmed enough for a significant melt. The first video shows a kid zooming past my apartment building. I could see both Alex's car and my own in the parking lots. Do click. 
Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery. ~ Bill Watterson
This is a peek between two buildings belonging to the Art Gallery of Peterborough. That sofa sits out there facing the lake all year long - it's made of concrete.
One breathy vowel
mists the glass warming window
panes crystallized with snow
~ Robin Glasse
Another moonshot with a confusion of images etched into the frost. What do you see?
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? ~ J.B. Priestley
The kids' playground is mostly abandoned throughout winter. Swing seats are padded with fresh puffs of snow.
One winter morning I awoke to see magnificent lines of frost stretching across my window panes. They seemed to rise with the sunshine and the bitter cold outside. They looked like little miracles that had been formed in the dark of the night. I watched them in sheer amazement and marveled that such beautiful forms could be born during such a winter-cold night. ~ Joyce Rupp
I find it difficult to stop taking photos of my frosty windows. If winter is lemons, this is my lemonade.
Winter teetered on the verge of succumbing to the returning sun, but today the breeze still preferred the touch of snowflakes. ~ Rue
Bare branches against the partly-cloudy sky. Some days it only takes a matter of moments until you have entirely different weather.
These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines,
Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines,
Which she will make when summer comes again--
Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold,
Like curious Chinese etchings.
~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich
It looked to me like birds landing atop the cedars but it's only the frost so delightfully backlit by the moon.
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
Snowy shoreline on a late winter afternoon. The gulls and ducks seem unaffected by the cold.
Frost grows on the window glass, forming whorl patterns of lovely translucent geometry.
Breathe on the glass, and you give frost more ammunition.
Now it can build castles and cities and whole ice continents with your breath's vapor.
In a few blinks you can almost see the winter fairies moving in . . .
But first, you hear the crackle of their wings.
~ Vera Nazarian
One more moonlit frosted window. Let your imagination take flight.I'll have more winter images for you before too much longer. No doubt there will be more frosted windows among them. More coffee?
