Impossible. Part two.

Impossible to narrow these down to any fewer pictures, starting off with more than a couple hundred, nearly a vacation's worth, taken during not even a couple of hours.  Again, impossible to truly capture the feel of actually being here.  Almost impossible to believe even when you are.  An impossibly beautiful and magical wonderland.  Easy to get lost in.  Hard to walk away from. 

Caught up in it all, somewhere along the way I set my mittens down and, probably close to an hour later, with freezing fingers and my real life responsibilities back inside the house calling me, I had to track and retrace my wandering footsteps through the snow to find them.

Warmish days followed by cold, clear nights, and fog in the more open and low-lying spots on our place seem to be just the right formula to create this each of the last few mornings. The longest of these crystalline formations were about one inch long.  It only lasts as long as it stays cold enough, until the sun comes up and warms the air enough to make it all either fall or drip down to the ground below.  By noon, at the latest, it's all gone.

Even so, it was only on the grasses and trees down in the open field.  See? Not at all on the only slightly higher hillside.

Hoarfrost A deposit of interlocking ice crystals (hoar crystals) formed by direct sublimation on objects, usually those of small diameter freely exposed to the air, such as tree branches, plant stems and leaf edges, wires, poles, etc., which surface is sufficiently cooled, mostly by nocturnal radiation, to cause the direct sublimation of the water vapor contained in the ambient air.

I wasn't really even sure if this was the name for it until poking around online.  Of course, no surprise, there's an entire Flickr pool's worth of photos. 

"Hoarfrost" or "rime" seem too harsh of words for such a fleeting and fragile phenomenon.  "Frost ferns" or "fairy frost" (although not this one nor this one) seem more like it, or even the common explanation, "the work of Jack Frost."

Last summer's skinny grass stems cast thick, fuzzy shadows in the low, winter, morning sunshine.

If you listen quietly, and gently brush the sparkling crystalline ferns off and onto the snow below, it sounds like the tiniest of glass fairy's bells tinkling into the crisp cold air.

Comments

[cypress]

I have heard of this frost all throughout my life and never knew what I should be visualizing...certainly, I never came up with anything nearly as beautiful as the real thing that you've shown here. Thanks for sharing this.
Reading your blog and the way you and the boys delight in the beauty that is around you has had an effect on me. My climate is very different from the one you are in, but I am inspired by you to keep noticing and celebrating the gorgeousness that is here at my own back door!

[Kristin]

Gorgeous photos! It hasn't been much of a hoarfrost winter here in Bend, but last year we had a lot of it. Thanks for sharing!

[Lizz]

Amazing and delightful!

[Tracy in Qatar]

I second the "thank you thank you thank you" and "brought tears to my eyes" comments.
So often your photos make me catch my breath. Thank you for sharing your amazing "place of sense" with us.

[ellen]

Absolutely enchanting. Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures.

[Susan M]

Oh my gosh, Siri, that is the most beautiful site I have ever seen!! Fairy Frost!! Like I've said before, yours is the first blog I read every morning...and you certainly made my day today!!

[Heide]

I've never seen hoar frost before, it's beautiful! Thank you for sharing those amazing photos with everyone.

[Allegra]

gorgeous pictures!

[Barb]

Dang, that is awesome. Thanks for sharing the information and incredible pictures!

[crzjane]

Thank you for sharing those photos. They are amazing.

[di]

Stunning photos. So beautiful- thankyou for sharing them! (wow, it's amazing the things there are Flickr pools for!)

[Ellen]

Gorgeous! Like feathers of ice.

[Lasso the Moon]

Those pictures are truly incredible.
Nice job capturing this phenomenon.
Anna

[Carla]

Such beautiful pictures that I caught my breath when the first came up. Thank you for your wonderful blog!

[kristin]

stunning photographs!!

[Sheila]

I never heard of Hoarfrost until I moved out west. Those are great photos! You have some amazing photos.

[barbibouille]

It is beautiful.
C'est très beau j'aime beaucoup ces photos.

[Storjägarn´]

Wooow! So beautiful pictures....I live i North part of Sweden and have never seen that kind of big frostcristals

[Leanne]

First time visitor those photos are amazing I have been sitting here for ages just staring at them.

[Leanne]

First time visitor -Those photos are amazing - I have been sitting here for ages just staring at them.

[estrellazul]

amazing, magical, wonderful, tank you very mucha for sharing this photos !!!

[Sarada]

Wow! What an interesting phenomenon, your pictures are beautiful.

[Susana]

gorgeous!

[Ken F]

Fascinating. I followed a link here which was forwarded by someone else, and it was well worth it. Might I also add to what's already been said here that fairyfrost5.jpg is an awesome photograph. :)

[Janice in GA]

/jaw drops open in amazement/

Wow. We sure don't get neat stuff like that down in the southern US. Thanks for sharing the pictures!