Bradford Pear: Studies in Structure

 

I am always most taken by the structure of the Bradford Pear Bloom Ball Cluster...   The tree itself resembles an egg on a stick, while the bloom cluster itself, something a snowball.  

The Broken Spring

The Japanese Magnolia at the Arkansas State Capitol trumpet the arrival of Spring, every year but this.  On March 2 and Ice storm and subsequent freeze killed the blooms just at the point they were ready to unfurl.  Not a bloom bloomed.

Winter into Spring

After neary a month of no blazing photo activity, given chilly skies and a grey mood, a photo bud and I hit pay dirt.

This should be the first of dozens of pictures, taken March 3, 2014. As is they closed my job and most area schools because of bad weather, a crunch sleet that fell with such exuberance it mimicked snow. And then it rained, and then is snowed. But that didn't stop friend Bill Swartzwelder and me from heading to the hills. A mighty day to be out.

“Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!… He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as fragments, Who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His word and melts them He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow.” ~Psalm 147:12-18

Icemaker

These two pictures showcase a most amazing phenomena... that of a stick just above the surface of rapidly moving chilled water - as it catches spray from the moving steam. I assume the flowing water is just above freezing... and the air above, below the same.