April is not at all the cruelest month

[JeffR]

[Celebration]

1. I hate to ask but

But what are those hair like things in the second one?

Save the first one first one in case we ever do vote on Stairways. I love it.

I really like the color in the third one.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. looks like sleet/freezing rain

to me

[JeffR]

3. They're snowflakes.

1-second exposure at f/4.5

[Adsos Letter]

4. I can really feel the stark coldness of the physical materials in that first shot

cold spiritual material, too. Very effective.

[JeffR]

5. Thank you. And it really was just miserable cold.

I only had my right glove off to get the occasional shot that afternoon, then right back on, but my right thumb burned so long when I got back in that I thought it was frostbite. Just frostnip, it turned out, but I didn't need any further reasons for hating winter. It's fascinating for about two weeks, maybe four if there's some big snowfall or two and it's warm enough to be out with a camera, but I'm officially fed up with it.

Now all I have to do is wait impatiently for about 70 days and it'll be over. And hey, Spring Training will be commencing during the vigil, so onward into 2010.

[regnaD kciN]

6. Very evocative of the "dead season"...

...which is marked, out here, by rain, continual slate-gray skies, and dead vegetation. Snow would be an improvement.

(By the way, T.S. Eliot originally led off The Waste Land with a sentiment closer to yours, "February is the cruelest month," and only changed it at the urging of Ezra Pound -- which, considering what happened to Ezra Pound, probably explains a lot of things.)