Fallen Tree Branches, the day after

I was too tired to post these yesterday, but here it goes. I was also too depressed about my beloved tree (the one my cats loved to climb all over!) to go outside and take photos, so I asked K to take these.

Really, I'm pretty traumatized with snow right now, what I wrote paraphrasing one of my favorite songs ever is very true... now I know both sides of snow, the good and the bad. I imagine I would be even more traumatized if I'd had a car accident in the snow (shiver!).

So sad...

Snow: Both Sides Now (or NO!!! My Trees!!!!)

"I've looked at snow from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's snow illusions I recall.
I really don't know snow at all."

For 15 years, I've loved snow. Sure, it was annoying at times, lots of work to shovel, slushy and brown after several days and melting... but snow was magic! It was amazingly beautiful and turned a dreary winter landscape into a "winter wonderland." The dangerous and awful one was freezing rain, not snow. That is, until today.

I was a bit freaked out, but still excited about snow in October. All I could think of were beautiful photos of  red leaves covered with snow. I could not imagine this:

This was just yesterday:

And now today:

I'll write more later, OK?

Araucaria Brasiliensis

(my apologies for editing this a third time. I should proof read before publishing. The problem with photos, though is that sometimes they're not positioned where I want them so I need to come back and edit)

While I work on my "dangerous childhood" post I want to share with you some photos of a pine tree, which is native of Southern Brazil. Its scientific name is Araucaria Brasiliensis (or Angustifolia), but it is commonly called simply Araucária or pinheiro do Paraná (Paraná's pine tree). It is a beautiful and unique tree which produces a large and edible pine nut (photos of the "nut" below).

This tree reminds me of my childhood since I grew up in Paraná and most of my extended family, both in my mom and my dad's side still lives there. I visit Paraná, particularly Curitiba, the state capital, every time I travel to Brazil and I've been trying to photograph this tree. Here are some of these photos from January 2004, most taken from the car while we were traveling. Last year I took some more, but I think they're in a CD somewhere.

And here's its "nut" which is eaten after it's boiled for a while in salted water. It's called pinhão (or big pinha, or pine cone). These photos were taken from the internet.