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| ICE FEATHERS (Photo by Chris Huston; not black and white) |
The other day, a real bone-chiller (minus 30 on Sugarbush summit
that morning) son-in-law and neighbor Chris took a walk in a field behind his
house where a small stream winds its frozen way. He took a photo of what he saw.
In December we (not only
“we”) could have spent a couple of days at the beach, wearing bathing suits
practically, had we chosen to, yet a week or so later we donned ski layers for
some downhill at Sugarbush and cross country at Rikerts, up Breadloaf way. Shortly afterward––I’ve lost track of these
changes––I heard some commercial maple syrup farmers (do we call them farmers
if the crop is sap?) were starting to tap their trees because the sap was
running. Spring. In January.
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| Skyler and me on the mountain near our house in January (Note the lack of snow!) |
Whenever the snow vanishes it reveals
what the dogs have left behind. (You know
what I mean.) For
reasons only a dog understands, all the turds are located, appropriately, atop
the septic mound. This is
where Skyler and his sister Daisy who’s often here like to sit and view the
woods and the field, and where they bark at things no one else can
see. They’ve worn a straight line
to what they think of as the back edge of their domain––at least a dozen feet
from the invisible fence––where it makes a 90-degree turn and heads to a second
spot with a slightly different vantage point. Creatures of habit.
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| Halfway up at Mount Ellen, Sugarbush, one good snow day |
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| Birds accumulating on the bush near the bird feeder one cold day |
Is it because of El Niño,
the warm Pacific currents that the weather pattern has been so perturbed? In the Galapagos in December we heard about the
disastrous effects of a previous El Niño. This year’s is particularly
strong. I should say, disastrous
for some. Unusual amounts
of rain in that archipelago mean tough times for sea lions and some other ocean
animals––their food vanishes––but good times for land animals like iguanas and
tortoises. Deer probably benefit
here because every other week the snow melts and they can browse the
grasses. The have only to wait out
a couple of days of extreme cold.
One of those warmer days grandson Hans christened the dinghy (plus oars) he’d
crafted this fall in the bay in Newburyport. He arrived
here a couple of days later to begin Middlebury College life (he and about
a hundred other freshmen are called “Febs”) just in time for the three coldest
days. They spent the coldest day
of all at the Snow Bowl where the wind chill was about 20 below (minus 29 Celsius).
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| Checking out the dinghy in Newburyport, in early Feb |
When
Chris showed us his photo of ice feathers I thought of hiking over to that stream and
having a look. I wondered
whether the conditions were such that every area of frozen water would exhibit
the same phenomenon. I walked
around and onto our pond. It
was smooth, the ice covered with a thin film of snow. But near the overflow that goes beneath our driveway where
the water is less likely to be still, I saw the feathers. Not as beautiful nor as large as the
ones Chris saw, but ice feathers nonetheless. This is how they are made: in really cold air wind blows
the water away before it can freeze in some places while allowing it build in
others. Some water evaporates,
other bits attach to already frozen bits. The physics of crystals. Rime ice like this is often seen on the stunted trees at mountaintop level, the
ice crystals facing away from the prevailing wind.
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| Looks cold, doesn't it? |
Why are there ice feathers? Because they’re beautiful, of course.
