It was sunny for a little bit yesterday so I went out for a walk while it lasted. Here is our active volcano (could blow any time), Mt. Rainier, showing its winter snows. The theme for  Thursday Challenge is “Winter,” so take a look there at some other wintery ideas.

This is a good one for Scenic Sunday as well. And hello, Skywatch Friday folks!

This is such an unusual photo that I had to share it today. I took it on my trip to NY from Seattle at the beginning of the month. This view out the airplane window was somewhere in the middle of the country, past the Rockies I think. It looks like a map of itself! I have no idea if the snow was deep or not, but I have never seen the earth look like this from above. I know it’s a stretch from water to snow, but this one is as magical as water, I think.

For more shots of water in all its many manifestations, click HERE.

The other morning there was a surprise inch of snow on the ground. Soon the sun came out and it was gone, but before it did, I caught this shadow underneath the big old cedar tree out back.

For other shadows of all kinds, click HERE.

This is from December; we had so much unaccustomed snow here in Seattle. This is a view in my backyard of the neighbor’s barn. Even though the photo is almost black and white, there’s some color, too.

For more watery photos, click HERE.

Today’s weather was in the high 40s at least, so I was able to be out in the garden pulling weeds, which I actually enjoy doing. I thought I’d show a snow photo from December as a bit of contrast. Snow could happen again, of course, but we wouldn’t have the pretty Christmas lights if it did. And I know they’re not really shadows, but so pretty anyway I thought I might get away with it as a shadow post.

For more real shadows, extremely artistically photographed, click HERE.

This amaryllis is sitting on my windowsill, with our snowy landscape for the background. It is a ruby thing of beauty, I think. And has a bonus for me, too: not one, but two flower stems from the same bulb. For more Rubiness, click HERE.

This is also my Flower for Today. For more flowers around the world, click HERE.

We’ve had an amazing amount of snow here in Seattle. I’ve got studded tires so I can get out if I need to, but I sure hope the power stays on. While it’s awfully inconvenient, with lots of  cancelled events and parties, it is incredibly beautiful as well. Here are a couple of recent early morning snow photos for your enjoyment. Check out the third one with the snowy horse, too.

For more scenic photos around the world, click HERE.

For more shadows of all kinds, click HERE.

The horse you see in our neighbor’s pasture below is a mustang, so I guess she’s used to all kinds of weather and she didn’t feel like going into her barn just for a little snow. Later on she did, and I for one felt better.

It’s snowing right now here in Seattle but too dark for photos. The snow, our first this winter, made me look for something scenic to post that included snow. How about this one? Taken last year at my old house in the back yard. When nature cooperates, you don’t need to go far for photos worth taking. I hope you agree. For more Scenic Sunday posts, click HERE.

I haven’t been taking enough pictures recently to have ones worthy of sharing, so I thought I’d look at last year on this date and see what I found. Voila! Some very nice ones. The first was taken at the Darrington Bluegrass festival, in a sunny moment. I do not know the name of the beautiful mountain.

And here are some daylilies that I grew in the Des Moines house. They are only in their third year here in the ground. Our new house in Normandy park will definitely have some of these, after the garden gets going.