The Beginning Hours Of A March Nor'easter

Another (our third in a row) nor'easter had just begun and it was frosting the woods and fields like white cotton candy. I'd recently taken the tractor driving tour around the north field but decided to hop into my car and start down the gravel road to again see what beauty the snow was creating. I began with this field, backed up by a brushy woodland:

A former gateway into a field which hasn't been used in many years:

A patch of Staghorn Sumac, the red clusters of berries seemingly covered with powdered sugar:

My neighbor's maple sap lines. It was certainly sugaring season, but I hadn't seen him out and about. I worried if something had happened to him:

But then I found him and his uncle stopped along the road, transferring the sap into a giant tank to be boiled down. They are friendly and some of my favorite people. I'm always glad to stop and chat:

I continued on my way and began looking for places where beech trees added a bit of color to what otherwise might make the photos look like they were in black and white:

A beech tree and pine tree among the aspens, with an old barbed wire fence paralleling the road:

An old stone wall where I once released a mouse I'd caught in a live trap:

The snow was sticky and causing an intricate, lacy beauty:

I'd been expecting the Red Pines to be exceptionally lovely, but they seemed to be holding less snow than the hardwood branches. They were still beautiful, though:

More piney woods:

Pines and beech. I stopped at my Amish neighbor's field where he appeared to be digging a well. I asked him if he'd come and trim my horses' feet on Saturday, which is the day he has assigned for such jobs. He said he'd be there in the morning. This was the end of my driving tour, so I headed home to get some work done: