Winter Fog

When I was young, I lived in an area that almost never got snow.  We had rain, although not very much of it; only about 2 inches per year . . . but we had fog! And, no . . . I didn't live on the coast!  (more about that in a moment.) It was a mostly foggy dreary winter for us. It wasn't like Carl Sandburg's famous poem:

Fog

BY CARL SANDBURG

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

In our town, the fog never moved on! It was there all winter, and WOW! was it cold, since the sun never shown for days and weeks on end.  It was not the normal fog that most people are familiar with and are used to creeping in early in the morning and then leaving ("moving on" as Sandburg puts it) like it does on the coast ("harbor and city").  This wintry fog is a phenomenon in the San Joaquin Valley in my home state of California.  It's due to a temperature inversion, and  is called "Tule fog"-- pronounced tu-lee.  It forms after the first good rain fall in Autumn and it stays, because of the high pressure patterns of our weather, all the way through to March, sometimes! Here is a bird's eye view of the huge San Joaquin socked in for the nearly 400 miles of it! If you are familiar with the California coastline, you can probably distinguish the San Francisco Bay area, although I lived in the southern tip of the valley.

Picture from Wikipedia Tule fog article

Sew, earlier this year when I made my art piece, called Emerging Foggy Spring, shown here, I knew exactly what I was wanting to portray. (Here is the original post of the making of this piece.) (Also did another post a couple of years ago, of a foggy acrylic painting that I did.)

link 

Now, I am wanting, pondering in my creative thoughts actually, to design an embroidery piece that embodies fog!  Such a challenge, but I'm up for a challenge! Of course I will share it when I am finished! What do ya think?  You up for a new challenge in your new year? Hope this post sparks some of your own creative juices!

Note: This is actually a blog post for my favorite Etsy team, the Blogging Business Artisans! Why not go on over and see what the other members have come up with--it might just inspire you!

Also linking with Create-with-Joy  today!

Winter Decorations

I know that we usually decorate for Christmas, then endure winter, until we start yearning for Spring!  But winter is an awesomely beautiful time if you just look for the beauty.  Several of my blogger friends have done  posts with gorgeous photos of winter scenes!  (Better to be looking at the pictures than be out in the freezing cold, tee hee!) Anyway, I decided to encourage you to decorate for the winter season--just a little something to remind you daily that winter can be awesome, not just cold! something to remind you to get outside and take pictures!  Here's my simple snowflake decorated window:

Look wintry enough?  

Goodbye Winter!

I promised part 2 of my Challenge project today . . . but . . .  I would like to save that until Thursday, if you don't mind.  The reason for my change is the change in the weather!!!  Today is the first day of Spring, although technically here on the west coast, it was yesterday at about 10:09 pm PST.   Hubby and I took a walk by the river a few days ago and I never reported on it.  It is a winter story, and so I wanted to place it here, between winter and spring, chronologically.

We often eat our lunch in our car riverside where the Clackamas and the Willamette Rivers intersect in the Southern portion of the Portland area.  (A great article on the Clackamas River.) This particular day was balmy with warm sunshine.

 

We walked on the sandy beach created by the river's low level, while hubby and I took pictures, enjoying the exercise and the sunshine. I enjoyed the ducks, the geese, and the calmness of the water. 

I even snapped a few artsy photos of the sand!

We walked a little further up river and found signs of last months flooding--debris left in the trees about ten feet above hubby's head! I did a post about the high water last month.  You can see it here.

Gladstone bridge over the Clackamas River

 Thanks for allowing me this deviation from the plan and taking this stroll with us.  Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring!  Although it's still supposed to snow later this week!  Scheech! 

P.S.  One more photograph of something we found on the beach, tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday!

Fleeting Winter WW

Carnival Post - Snowflakes

Mother and Child Snowflake Print

by Valiantstudios

I love snowflakes, don't you? I know, they can only be seen in the midst of cold weather! But they are worth it! I remember seeing huge snowflake clusters falling when I lived in the mountains. Those clusters added to the total

Winter

by interrupt

overall footage of snowfall, but, of course, they settled with just a little warm weather. Anyway, snowflakes are the most beautiful crystal in nature, in my opinion.

So I went thru Etsy to see what intriguing items I could find that featured snowflakes. This post represents my favorites!

Snowflake Place Cards

by TimelessPaper

Snowflakes Card

by sarahtoma

Snow Flurries plates

by justmare

Winter is Upon Us!

Photography anyone?

Yesterday, my husband and I went out on a walk. Since we're house sitting by the Cedar River; we walked up the road and then on to a little public park by the riverside. I took my camera and snapped a few pics. It's fun trying new things with your camera! With the new digital cameras there's no more worrying about running out of film--just make sure your camera is charged! I've had plenty of friends get to a possible great shot and their battery was dead!

Anyway, I thought I would share a few of my pics. I plan to use some of them as the inspirations for a new quilt. They are also good for studies in color, especially winter day subtleties. Enjoy!