Where's Winter????

My husband said it this morning: 'Where's winter?' he asked.

Good question. It's the middle of December and it's like early November out there. Practically no snow, no frost. Just drear, drear, dreary wet grey woods, soggy raspberry canes, dripping branches and ferns flat on the ground looking bedraggled. One thing, you can sure see the evergreen ones!

Kip and I went for a walk just now to see if we could see anything worth photographing. After half an hour we both agreed the answer was 'no' and we came back in. Here's Kip looking damp:

Notice his fine eyebrows! When he was a wee pup I chose him because I liked his brown eyebrows.

We did admire some mosses, though. I love those 'moss balls'. These are mosses that have the acrocarpous (upright, clustered) growth form. Here's one:

Here's a moss that has the other growth form, that is, creeping or sprawling, or pleurocarpous:

OK, end of lesson.

We did see a curious fungus. It was only about 3" high and at first glance looked like a patch of scales from a pine cone nibbled apart by a squirrel. Each one is flat, with an outline like a lozenge or tongue, and with the bottom sides of the lozenge curled in to create a sort of tube. I'm sorry the picture isn't clearer, but it really was dark out there!

Tomorrow is supposed to warm..... if this keeps up I'll have to do some garden work!