Winter Green

    I hadn’t been on our trail through the bush, that we used to walk daily, for a couple of months.  We stopped walking it because of a neighbor’s two pit bulls, but yesterday I thought I would walk it again because the fallen leaves were all damp and wouldn’t make much noise, and the wind was blowing through the trees, which would muffle the sound my walking made.  

    There wasn’t any snow on the ground and it seemed I had to stop every 5 steps to pick up tree branches that the wind had blown down since my last visit.  The big surprise of the walk however was seeing a few ferns that were still green.  There are some plants that maintain their green color and photosynthesis throughout our winter (wintergreen comes to mind), but ferns do not.

    All of the other ferns around here are now brown and decaying, but surprisingly a few, like the one pictured above, have so far survived the freezing temperature and still looked alive and healthy.  I guess somehow they managed to stay relatively warm during the frosts and cold weather we have experienced.   Maybe they were protected by some snow.  At any rate, it was nice to see a bit of color when everything else around here is either gray or brown.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant.ca