Oak Gall

The leaves have fallen long ago from the local Oak trees but the brown leaves and galls remain on the ground.  Caused by insects injecting chemicals into the foliage, galls are abnormal plant growth and don't generally damage the health of the host tree

Hair Ice

With the recent sub-freezing weather I was hoping for more Hair Ice on our property.  I only found one example of this delicate and relatively rare ice formation.

Same twig 6 days later:

Closeup of same twig

Found another Alder branch a few feet away with similar ice formation

Found some more this morning, 1-4-2014

Closeup of the above picture; the pores in the wood are incredibly small- I got as close as I could with my 180mm macro lens.  This picture only covers an area of about 1" x 1"