The stars were burning bright last night.  New Zealand is a star gazer’s paradise.  In this Year of Astronomy there are plenty of opportunity to learn how to read the night skies.  Our location in the world means that we see things from the most southerly latitude so we can see a lot more cosmic activity than most.

I didn’t linger to watch the night sky for long outside.  It was brrrring freezing.  The clear night sky only meant one thing for me – that I was going to need my thermals today.  And, I wasn’t wrong.

It was minus 1 when I took MT to the station this morning although it felt a whole heap colder with the wind chill factor kicking in.  It was a morning for lots of layers, hat and gloves to brave the chicken feeding and cleaning chores.  As I was already outside it seemed right and proper to grab the camera for a spot of photography practice.  The grass was frosted – a hard frost so it crinkled when you walked on it.  The bassets were making sweet crinkly music as they sniffed the frosty grass.

It wasn’t just the grass on the ground that was frosted and frozen.  The grasses in the barn raised bed were putting on quite a frosty show.

In fact, pretty much everything was frozen for a while.  Here’s a gorse tip.

And the ground cover plant whose name escapes me right now!

The frosty purple Huechera was turning blue in the cold.

This was a small bright spot – the Penstomen Connie’s Pink – shining by the frozen step.

And then I looked further and found some more bright colours.  The hebe flowers were fuzzy and cold.

The Rhododenron buds were frozen.  This is the first time I’ve really noticed they’ve got buds.

This tiny leptospermum flower seemed to have escaped the frost.  They are so bright and charming, they make me smile.

But enough of this talk of flowers, I know you’re dying to know how things are faring in the potager.  I have to say it looked pretty gloomy in there.  Frozen and droopy with the weight of the frost.  It was a case of frozen vegetables without the deep freezer.

The ice on the parsley was particularly artistic I thought.  The frost seemed to outline every leaf creating a white border.

The frost also put an amazing texture onto the leeks.

The Bok Choi were frozen solid.  If you’d tried to touch the leaves they would have snapped off in your hand.  I didn’t touch though.

Which is not what you could say about little basset.  He was enjoying the touching, sniffing and licking of this very frosty grass.

It was indeed a magical sight this morning.  It was as those the stars had sent down frosty crystal magic to make everything sparkle.  As always though these white blanket was short lived.  When the sun was up it brought a bright clear sky with lots of sunshine and the temperature soared to a balmy 10 degrees.  Enough to melt the ice and frost and leave wet, slush and mud behind.

Something else the bassets like wallowing around in.  Oh such a wonderful thing to have to contend with on cleaning day!