Another look at ice

I really wasn't planning on posting about ice again today, but on this crisp, cold morning the sunlight was just hitting the garden right. Everything sparkling, a thousand tiny suns. I just had to grab the camera and see what I could capture.

For the most part these were taken through the windows, but I actually went outside for a couple of them.

***

I tried a lens that I typically don't use, and I'm really pleased with the results. It created little star flares on all of the sparkling points, and gave a nice warm glow to several of the images. Maybe that's because the lens is dirty, or perhaps it's not a very high-quality lens. It's certainly not the sharpest lens, but I love what it did this morning.

This is what caught my eye first today and made me get the camera -- the bamboo glinting and glowing:

Of course, pretty much everything with ice on it was glinting, and since ice was everywhere, it was a very sparkly morning.

What I really like about the dark tree branches is they look like they're wired with little lights. Almost bioluminescent, like a creature from deep in the ocean:

This is certainly a glass stirring rod from a chemistry lab, but what is it doing in my garden?

Are you old enough to remember rain lamps from the 70's? That's what this reminds me of:

(This lens also creates nice bokeh, doesn't it?)


More bioluminence. It just doesn't look real... a bit like a tree from Tron, if there were any trees in that world:

I've been assured that the bamboo will spring back up once the ice melts. I've also been told that it will catapult any remaining ice or snow, so I'll be on the lookout for that this weekend when it warms up a bit.

This is the trellis that holds one of my hummingbird feeders. I'm hoping next year it will be completely covered in climbing rose, so I probably won't get this sort of shot ever again:

I really don't like to do too many posts in a row about the same sort of thing (ice, in this case), but I couldn't resist this morning.

Although I do have one more ice/snow post planned, I'm going to actually talk about some plants before hitting you with that one. I mean, this is a gardening blog, right?