The max amount of snow to February 13th

 The front tree loaded with snow on Feb. 12

 Peony Tree seed heads with their snow caps on.

 Closer to the heavy, wet snow piled on the tree branches on Feb. 13

 Overview of the max snow.  The hedges are beginning to be flattened out 

 Icicle in the sunset on February 13th.

By February 25th most of the snow has melted and these crocuses are looking good again.
As of the 15th of March the crocus field has lots of bulbs up, but some pig has been parking their car on part of the crocus field and the bulbs are flattened out.  

The snow piled higher and higher

 The lantern in the Japanese/Moss garden.  Shooting from the window under the deck.  I have recently found the name of the plant with the big leaves.  I believe it is the castor oil plant, although it does not have red leaves and I have never seen it bloom.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricinus  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricinus

 Railings on the 12th piled higher with snow.

 A closer look at the fluffy, wet snow piled on the deck railing. 
 The bird bath with at least a foot of snow piled up on it.  Beside it the basil plant had gone to seed and I left it in its pot.  I wonder if any of the seed will germinate. 

 More of the chairs, table and deck piled with snow.  I had cleaned the snow off the bin by the deck door and was putting out the humming bird feeder on it in the morning.  Wish I had taken a photo of it.

 The icicle out the dining room window at its maximum size.  It grew from the melt and repeated freeze.

            The bushes and the power line across the street.

 The david is heaped with snow.  The bamboo is weighted down to the ground  with all the snow on it.

More of the snow piled on the deck railing and the bay laurel behind it.

The bird bath on the deck heaped with at least a foot of  snow.  The basil next to it had gone to seed.  I wonder if any of the seed will germinate.  

The big snow of February continued

 The snow kept falling over the next 2 or 3 days.  It was just above freezing to make the snow wet from slight melting.  When there was any wind it caused damage to trees and power lines.  There were quite a few people without power.  The children had a snow day or two, and so did some of the working people.  The above is the snow on the deck stairs on the 10th.

 The moss garden under the first blanket of snow.

 the seedheads of a perennial plant at the pond edge covered in snow.  Behind this snow you can see the waterfall running.  The running waterfall keeps a open space on the top of the pond for oxygen exchange in the pond.

 on the 10th the snow piled up on the easterly side of the telephone pole.  The next day the snow was on the opposite side of the post.  I guess that the direction of the wind caused this interesting occurrence. 

 The back deck railings piled with snow with the woodland in the background.  

 An overview of the front garden, shooting out the front window of course.  The hedges became loaded with heavy wet snow.  They have recovered now, though, thank heavens.

 A view of the park trail through the front tree, that is loaded with snow also.

 The david with hat and scarf.   The bamboo is strategically bending in the snow to frame the david.

 This icicle formed in the melt from the roof and continued for a few days.

 More snow fell on the 11th piling up everywhere.

The table and chairs on the deck.  I think we must have had at least a foot of snow... chairsfull of it. 

The pots and the light on the deck with even more snow falling.
You can see why a great snowfall is such an event for me.  The shadows and highlights of all the white create some very interesting photos.

The big snow of February

 A closer view of the David with the bamboo beginning to be weighted down with snow on February 10th.

 The david and some of the front garden on February 10th.

 The peony tree seed heads loaded with snow on February 10th.

 The icicle hanging off the eaves at the front shooting out the dining room window, on February 10th

 February 10th.  The snow is beginning to pile up. I like how this view of the woodland turned out.

 An overview of the front garden on February 8th, shooting out the front window.

 February 8, with a bit more snow.  The deck with the background woodland.

 More of the pond on February 3 with a bit of ice on the surface.  The waterfall keeps an area of the pond surface open to oxygen exchange.

The snow started to fall on February 3.  Showing the waterfall and  pond.
Much more snow photos to come.  We seldom get this much snow.  Temperatures were just at the freezing mark over night and slightly higher during the day.

Playing with picture frames

 I have been spending quite a lot of time find picture frames in Paintshop Pro and in Photoshop.  The one above is from Paintshop Pro. To find it go to image/picture frame and choose from the list by clicking on the thumbnail of a frame that appears.  I find most of the frames  in PSP to be too big and really rather lame.  I cropped this frame from top and bottom to make the actual photo more prominent.    The crocuses are from February 24, 2019, after the big snow fall was mostly melted and gone, but the temperatures were cooler.  The temperature still remains colder now.  It seems colder than January for the last 2 weeks, with over night light frosts, sun in the day, but no clouds or rain.

 I made this drop shadow in Photoshop.  Make a new layer by copy, add some canvas size.  Then do a selection of the picture, right click the layer to get the blending options then proceed to make the drop shadow using the parameters you see in the drop shadow menu.  This process can make shadows for objects, depending on what you use as the selection.  I need to explore this application a bit more.  Also need to review the method of creating reflections, as the last time I tried that it made an excellent, real looking reflection of a car in a wet road.   This is a photo of my Christmas Cactus that has been in bloom for at least a month, and is still producing blossoms.  I see that my light pink Christmas cactus now has buds, too.  They are more like Easter cactuses.  It really helps to feed these these house plants.  I must pay attention to feeding my potted plants in the spring and summer too. 

 This frame was an edge frame in Paintshop Pro.   It shredded the edge of the picture, added the matting and the outer frame.  Color choices are available for the pictures.  I chose black and white to simplify my learning curve.  In Paintshop the picture frames are easily deleted and tray different ones.  When I used Paintshop I accidentally marked it to make Paintshop as the default program for all the jpegs, dng, etc  Took me a while to figure that one out.  The photo is the David in the recent February 10 snowfall.  There was even more snow on the 11th and onward.  Pictures of the big snowfall of  2019 to follow.

 This frame is from Photoshop.  Go to Actions, find the frame and highlight it, then click the little arrow icon at the bottom of the actions menu.  The frame just makes itself.  I guess matting could be added before the frame by using image/canvas size and filling in a suitable color and size.  The photo is the Heron in the Cuthbert Holmes Park in the Colquitz River; shooting from the Dysart Bridge; for the Victoria Grid on Flickr. 

 This is the wood frame from Photoshop, used on the photo of the Humble Administrators Garden in Suzhou, China, taken during our trip to China in March/April, 2012.  It is a spectacular Garden. 

Another photo from the Humble Administrators Garden.  I seem to have some pretty good photos from that trip using the little Canon powershot S31S. That little camera uses double AA batteries which are always available so does not need to have a charged up battery.  I also have some attachments for that camera.  It has a nice sharp lens.  I really must revive it and use it again.  I really must find the time to do up that album for my web page, too.  Need more time... ah well... if wishes were horses.....

This Photo Corners frame was in Photoshop.  This is from February 3 when it is just beginning to snow.