Warming up to winter

The sun is so far south now that the road is in the shadow of 
the trees till nearly 900 am.

On Sunday morning the dog and had a very cold start to our walk.  The wind was blowing hard from the northeast and the sky was a clear blue with a few fast moving cirrus clouds floating by.  The temperature was cold for me at 40 degrees with humidity in the 50 or 60 percent range.  When the wind blows from the north east after a front moves through we pretty much know it will not be long before the weather begins to warm up and become cloudy again.   We walked through the yard of the unoccupied home and saw a very pink Camellia growing there.

Alabama's state flower, the Camellia. 

 The Camellia is very popular here on the gulf coast because it blooms in cold weather when just about everything else is dead.  It is an evergreen so it's leaves stay on all through the year.

The trail to the woods is no longer in 
green grass since the frost.

We walked on down the trail through the grass to the opening that leads to the trail in the woods. I stopped to look at the beautiful view of the big blue sky spreading out over what was once the Soybean field. 

Such a beautiful morning should not be wasted inside.

The crisp clear air and bright sunshine make the available colors extremely bright and give the scene a life of it's own. 

We continued into the woods and saw that one Golden Orb spider is still hanging high above the trail even after several cold snaps.

The woods are quiet,
except for the wind.

These spiders may very well make it through the winter down there in the woods but as of yet I have not seen evidence that they do.  I have often wondered about whether or not there is any great difference in the air temperature in the deep woods as compared with the open areas where we humans live.  In my mind I it seems it would be warmer in the woods with all of the decomposing material on the forest floor.   Sounds like a job for the scientific method.  I will let you know how it goes.  Thanks for reading my blog today.  I hope it is as pretty where you are as it is here. If not, just wait, it soon will be.  Bye.