A perfect autumn day for a walk through the woods.

I had almost forgotten about this little Photoshop play I did years ago, but I think it makes a nice wallpaper. It makes me think of Christmas candy.

The coming year in perspective.

“Beyond them was a wide level space, as though the floor of a great hall had been cut in the side of the hill…, and along each wall stood an aisle of trees.… At the far end the rock-wall was sheer, but at the bottom it had been hollowed back into a shallow bay with an arched roof: the only roof of the wall, save the branches of the trees…. A little stream … fell tinkling down the sheer face of the wall, pouring in silver drops, like a fine curtain in front of the arched bay.

“Treebeard lifted two great vessels and stood them on the table. They seemed to be filled with water, but he held his hands over them, and immediately they began to glow, one with a golden and the other with a rich green light;… Looking back, the hobbit saw that the trees in the court had also begun to glow … until every leaf was edged with light: some green, some gold, some red as copper.”
— The Lord of the Rings, Book III, Chapter 4: Treebeard

Going down the lane seen in Glen of the Twins on a sunny autumn day. Can you see the kitties?

This is my digital artwork, not a photograph.

“The sky was pure, flat gold like the background of a medieval picture. The ocean was gold too, in the offing, flecked with innumerable shadows. The nearer waves, though golden where their summits caught the light, were green on their slopes: first emerald, and lower down a lustrous bottle green, deepening to blue where they passed beneath the shadow of other waves.… Far below him in a vast, momentary valley he saw the thing that had missed him. It was an irregularly shaped object with many curves and re-entrants. It was variegated in colour like a patch-work quilt-flame colour, ultramarine, crimson, orange, gamboge, and violet. It sat to the water like a skin, curving as the water curved. It took the wave's shape at the top, so that for a moment half of it was already out of sight beyond the ridge and the other half still lying on the higher slope. This thing might have been thirty acres or more in area.… And that is the nature of the floating islands of Perelandra.”
—Perelandra, Chapter 3 by C.S. Lewis

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
… The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”
Isaiah 60:1-3, 19-20

The early bird gets the berry! I love winter landscapes, expecially with a little red in them. And I'm always trying to get snow and crystals to sparkle and refract light. And I also love chickadees :-) So this was a natural combination!

“To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Luke 1:77-79

I love red in a winter landscape. And I love ice in the sunlight. Every winter I want to do a picture with ice, but until now I haven't been able to get the effect I was looking for. This time I think it finally turned out right.