Winter has hit these ornamental fruit trees like a shot to the nuts, taking the smooth youthful blush of their hanging balls and shriveling it up with the advance of the season. Everyone knows Mother Nature doesn’t mess around, and when it’s time, it’s time. In this case, these berries had an extended season – usually their perfect form has shriveled long ago. The past few months have found a gentler rush of weather in these parts, though the rest of the country may beg to differ.
This is the sort of winter scene that goes mostly unheralded and unnoticed in our hurry to get through the darker season. It’s also the sort of beauty that I find most arresting, perhaps because it comes at such a bleak time, when we are starved for color or excitement, when the barren land is mostly bereft of this bravado.
