I like the starkness of the photo, however, the bright sky(50% of the frame) overwhelms the lines of the trees. Not exactly sure how you could improve short of shooting at a different time of day. I see a little wierd blue color around the branches of the foreground tree so maybe the sky had some color in the original... Just my .02...trying to leave comments on the images near the bottom of my voting.
I like the ground, definately has that winter feel to it. The sky being so bright doesn't do anything for me. I would have preferred a tighter crop cancelling out some of that sky, but then that would take out the silhouette of the tall tree....