A little night magic

While visiting Viva Gallery with my sister Terri last week we met and spoke at length with one of the members of the Gallery  Monica Jagel. We discovered that she is a botanical drawing instructor at Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, a place I've visited often. It was her day to work the gallery and she was working on a drawing between visitors which she shared with us, a pencil drawing of a poppy seed head covered in what looked like spun sugar. She told us the driftless area often experiences what is called frozen fog and it creates magical scenes. During the night, though looking directly up to the stars the sky seemed clear, gazing across the fields in the dark the light from neighboring farms came to me as if through  gauze. This morning, past sunrise, the fog was so dense I could hardly see my potting shed. A magical frost was on everything not near the warmth of the farmhouse.

Then I got dressed and took a few photos of the plants near the house.

Had I gotten up earlier, walked down the road away from the relative protection of the house and trees, I can only imagine what I would have seen.
Just now there is something moving in the fog which looks as if it is laying a minute layer of white onto the arborvitae out the french doors here near my desk. It looks like a superfine snow but perhaps is moving frozen fog. The temperature reads  a hair above freezing on the thermometer, but if it were a tad colder, imagine the result.Though it is nearly 9:00 the fog has gotten denser. A truly magical morning up here on Asbury Ridge.