Ground-ivy, Glecoma hederacea

I was disappointed to learn that this new-to-me flower is native to Eurasia and has escaped cultivation to become widespread in North America.  Also known as Creeping Charlie, it is taking over sections of Lucia Falls County Park in SW Washington.

Baneberry, Actaea rubra

All parts of this native plant are extremely poisonous.  Red berries are present later in Summer.

Immature flowers:

Mature flowers:

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Snowflakes

Recent snow was followed by a very brief period of sunshine; I grabbed my camera and tripod and utterly failed to capture the exquisite geometric patterns that are visible to the naked eye.  Hopefully, subsequent attempts on my part will result in better pictures!

Steamy tree

At first glance this picture looks similar to the previous post except this time it is steam instead of smoke.  Recent rains have gotten everything pretty wet, including the trunks of trees.  Even though the air temperature was in the 30's bright sunshine brought enough warmth to vaporize the water in the bark.

Shafts of light through the trees

For once, smoke from the neighbors perpetually smoky wood stove did something vaguely useful.  With the Sun low in the sky, shafts of light through the trees were highlighted by the smoke.

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"