Winter has begun – we’ve had a few days of snow showers, and even a little snow sticking to the ground.

These were the first flakes.

Some friends came down this weekend for an overnight – we had a great time. We figured out how to use my Diwali lamps – oil lamps that are lighted at this time of year to celebrate an Indian festival of light.

They also helped me clear some brush. This is on the Knife Edge – a thicket of mostly Prickly Ash on the sandy part of the point.

Here’s the same place after we finished clearing.

Looking down from Hidden Oaks Point. We cleared brush from an area in the middle that I had never gotten to.

Now I’ll start expanding the cleared area around the point in both directions.

Virginia driving the gator.

I did one more clearing project on my own – the area just below Starflower Opening. Here’s the before photo.

And this is after a few hours of clearing. A few more hours of work and I should be able to link up my cleared space to Starflower Opening.

My favorite of our old apple trees. Every year it’s loaded with very hundreds of very small apples.

At this time of year I start noticing the lichens – these are all different species that grow on Wild Black Cherry bark.

Dead tree against the sunset