"Every Picture Tells a Story ... Don't It:" Part II | Eastern North Carolina Now

    In early winter, the change of the season is signaled by a visit from this pair of female and male mallards in my small pond (when we receive adequate rain) in my front yard. On occasion, mating duck pairs will stay a while before heading farther south, or remaining in the area, to winter, and search for various food sources here in eastern North Carolina.

    Down at the water's edge, we witness the sheen of the red algae blooms, which signals the colder months, of an impending winter season.

    A different cypress tree, inundated by snow on this rare January snow day, there along the edge of my thinly frozen pond.

    A rare snow in January (the winter season's coldest month) blankets my yard, and the snow swept base of this cypress tree in my lower front yard.

    We finish up with the 'Possum Slayer in her innate element, and surely tonight, or whenever she flops down in the warming sun, Darla will have in instinctive dreams of her breed's native north country. It is tough living summers in the sweltering South, and we do have her shaved in late spring, but at least she is not pulling a sleigh until her paws bleed.