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Category: ice

Without the Directions

Without the Directions

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On a doggie walk this morning I was stopped short in my tracks. Tree limbs were shiny, glazed with ice. It was unexpected and almost magical.

It was the best of both worlds, too, because the pavement wasn’t affected. There was friction on the driveway, fairyland up above.

I hadn’t known this was coming, hadn’t read weather reports that freezing rain was in the forecast.

It struck me then, and I second it now, that life is more exciting when we forget to read the directions.  

Frozen Walk

Frozen Walk

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It was a frozen world I walked through yesterday. Bundled up in my warmest coat, hooded and thick-socked, I made my way along the Franklin Farm trails, which were understandably empty. You know it’s cold when even the dog-walkers stay inside. 

The paths were mostly clear, but any pooled water was frozen solid. I stopped and examined the ice, snapped photos, wondered why some ice is milky white and other is clear, thought perhaps I should have learned that in high school but did not. Mostly, I moved quickly. A winter walk is bracing, as long as it’s short. 

Rise To Shine

Rise To Shine

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Yesterday’s freezing rain coated each twig and bough with a quarter inch of ice, and I awoke to a glittering world. It’s too slippery to walk outside but I throw open the window and snap this scene.

Everything is covered — from the mailbox flag to the leftover leaves of last summer’s climbing rose. Everything is covered — and everything is gleaming.

What this photo does not capture is the drip-drop-plop of all that ice melting. It sounds like rain, only it isn’t. It is, instead, the sound of beauty fading.

Snow on Ice

Snow on Ice

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Yesterday morning we woke to a frozen world, each bough and twig coated and gleaming. By 1 p.m. it was 33 degrees, and I could slide to the corner, where the pavement was wet but not icy. I could run the main road, could see how many trees were damaged during the storm.

Ice is beautiful but dangerous. How much would we pay for such beauty? Not another red oak, that’s for sure — but some bent bamboo stalks, I would gladly trade those to walk through such a strange, glittering, dripping world.

A new day now and fresh snow is falling. We have several inches on the ground and, more to the point, a heavy layer on every branch, bough and twig. It’s no longer a hard, bright, frozen world,  it’s a soft, white, feathery one.

But I know the ice that lurks beneath.

First Frost

First Frost

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When I was a child longing for snow, I would pretend that frost was a thin dusting of the white stuff. Now I see frost for what it is — a frozen exhalation, a definitive end to fall. But I am still amazed by the transformation of water into ice, still dazzled by its ordinary beauty.

Black Ice

Black Ice

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I’m not an ice skater, so when I hear the words “black ice” I don’t think of a calm skate on a frozen pond. Instead I imagine the skid mark, the tire tracks off the road. What is it about black ice that strikes terror in my heart? It’s the stealth, isn’t it? Fearing something that you can’t see. It’s the ordinariness of the ice, the way it poses as a puddle but turns out to be something more, something sinister. Black snow isn’t good either, of course, but at least you know what you’re getting — the fumes of a thousand internal combustion engines, the grit of countless plow-gouged roads. Black snow coats the roadside mounds and stands in sharp contrast to lawns of untouched white. But black ice is invisible; it’s felt before it’s seen. I drive cautiously when black ice is about; the curves of Fox Mill that are normally such a joy to lean into, I slog through slowly these days. And let’s not even mention how I shuffle along suspiciously shiny sidewalks. Black ice makes me walk like an old woman.