Winter finally decided to get serious this weekend, with temperatures dropping below zero Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights (negative 13 Monday morning!).
The ice on the river, which had been a soggy mess reformed (upstream; downstream it's been a wide-open channel all winter) and C and I took a walk upstream on Monday.
The ice had formed all kinds of interesting shapes over the weeks of melt and freeze and melt and freeze, with the last places to freeze over, low and shiny, and forbiddingly dark.
Remember in the fall when I was looking for a witch hazel tree? We found one leaning out over the water--where I could never have gotten to back in November. The little flower-looking thingies are the calyxes, or the whorl of flower sepals.
We saw so many interesting patterns and formations in the ice: scallops.
Whorls.
Serrations.
Bundles of needles.
Bubbles of ice flowing out of the side of the bank.
Ice islands in ice streams.
Puzzle pieces.
Fish bones of slick, shiny black ice.
Another thing we wouldn't see without walking on the river--the way the hemlock trees grow right out of the side of the bank; in fact, the way they hold the bank back and keep it from collapsing into the river.
And also this fungus growing on a tree where we climbed back up onto land. I don't know what it is, but it looks pretty neat.
What's wild in your neck of the woods this week?
Stunning photos! I love ice formations, always so much fun!
ReplyDelete