Magic in This Frosty Air

...it's just waiting to be discovered!

But you have to go out there to see it. 

We're talking about the other-side of the window... the freezing side...

early in the morning... 
before the sun peeks through the Winter clouds...
and it all... disappears! 

(Isn't that just like magic?)

So bundle up in your warm clothes and put on those Winter boots and gloves... 

we're going out in the FROSTY air.

Gonna find us some MAGIC!

Beauty Berry Crowned in Crystals

 Enchanting wouldn't you say?

They look as though they've been dipped in sugar.

Can you see the magic?

Look a little closer...

Snowflakes!

 Can you see them? 
Right there at the end of the stem.

Look closer, there are more!

Tiny perfect hexagonal (six sided) ice crystals.

     "They grow, beginning with a tiny nucleus, and developing around this nucleus a geometrical pattern of amazing regularity. Usually they're hexagonal; they have six sides or six branches. And the six sides will be exactly the same, even to details which can be seen only under the microscope. It is just simply marvelous! See those two tiny air bubbles, hardly larger than pinpoints: Even those bubbles are repeated in every one of the six sections of this crystal. So are all the dozens of other details. There's law and order for you! Each snowflake is as different from its fellows as we human beings are from each other..."  

                                           ~Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley 1925

 Magical!

 Can you see them?

Miracles of Frosty Beauty

    "Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

                      ~The Snowflake Man

Wilson "Snowflake"  Bentley aka The Snowflake Man spent his lifetime 
photographing and documenting snowflakes.

Crystal-coated European Cranberry


He was a pioneer in revealing the secrets of crystal formation 
and it was he who discovered that no two snowflakes are alike. 
He should know... he took over 5000 pictures of them.

His story is fascinating. 

 Follow the links throughout this post to find out more.

Snowflakes and Frost

     Wilson A. Bentley was born in 1865 in Jericho, Vermont. Taught by his mother, he lived and worked on his family farm located in the "Snowbelt," where the annual snow fall was about 120 inches. From the time he was a small boy, Bentley was fascinated by the natural world around him. He loved to study butterflies, leaves, and spider webs. He kept a record of the weather conditions every day and was fascinated by raindrops. Bentley developed an interest in snow crystals after he received a microscope for his fifteenth birthday. Four year later, in 1885, equipped with both his microscope and a camera, Bentley made the first successful photograph of a snowflake.            ~Smithsonian Institute Archives 
  

Bentley also researched the formation of frost... 

he called them jewels.

Jewels

      "A wild day or night of winds or snow and the earth and all there on is transformed, covered and glorified, with a mantle of glistening jewels and hill and mountain and forest take on new charm. A cold zero night and the jewels appear as if by magic.                             ~Wilson A. Bentley New York Times; Feb 19, 1928

Sugar Frosted!

  

Water molecules expand and re-orient themselves 

into geometric shapes as they freeze.

Frosty!

Don't let the blue sky fool you...
the temp here is 11°F. 

Shivering!

Before his death, the Snowflake Man wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institute. 
He was concerned that his life's work might be destroyed or lost. 
 They agreed to take 500 of his pictures and archive them. 

Visit his Image Gallery at the Smithsonian and you'll appreciate more the work of this great man... I sure do!

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This Grandmother's Garden | Highland, Utah, USA |