The Fine Art of Crunching Ice Puddles

This morning when Ed returned from the mailbox he told me it was cold outside.  After yesterday's warm weather and rain, my first question to him was, "Are there any good ice puddles?"  His answer in the affirmative sent me for my coat and the camera.  Crunching ice puddles is one of my favorite winter activities.  The satisfying crunching sound that a stepped on ice puddle makes was music to my ears as a child and it will always remain so.  When a shallow puddle freezes the thin lacy layer of ice has no water underneath.  This is a prime crunching puddle.

Your foot can tap dance all over a puddle like this one making that lovely crunching noise until the puddle is completely shattered. This never gets old, it's like I'm a kid again!

Here we have a more exciting and more dangerous ice puddle. This one is deeper and while it has a thin coat of ice covering it, there is water underneath.

The trick here is to step on the puddle only where there is air trapped under the ice.  This procedure must be done carefully.  The chance of  getting wet feet  is rather high.

This is a small puddle, so the risk is worth it.  Unless I slip and fall all  I will get is wet feet.  The sound here is more of a cracking noise.   I much prefer the crunching noise of the other puddles, but  the added element of danger makes this more exciting!

Crunching ice puddles being one of my favorite thing it was only natural that I would pass this joy onto my children. Many puddles were crunched as they walked to school on cold mornings. There was however a rather large drainage ditch in one place along their route. Sometimes the thin layer of ice would have a large airspace under it. Such an ice puddle emits a much louder cracking noise as the crack moves along the ice from the spot where it first breaks. Unfortunately there was also quite a lot of very cold, very dirty water in the bottom of that ditch. Once one of the children fell in that water and had to return home cold wet and dirty for a bath and a complete change of clothes. Crunching ice puddles is not an accepted reason for being late to school, but perhaps it should be!

 While this is an incredibly enjoyable activity, it should be said that small shallow puddles are relatively safe.  Large deep puddles are not. Under no circumstances should thin ice on ponds, streams or rivers be considered for crunching activity.

Dreams of Perfection

Earlier this month these three plant catalogs arrived at our mail box on the same day.  Each is from a favored supplier and each will receive an order from us this year.  Richters is located in Canada and has the most extensive herb seed and plant list ever seen here.  They supply us with three new lemon verbena plants each year.  Additional plants will fill out the order.  McClure and Zimmerman are an excellent source for native rootstocks.  Roots and Rhizomes have an extensive list of day lilies and Siberian iris.  Rough draft orders have been made and revised.  Why we do this is a puzzle of sorts.

Our garden already exceeds our ability to properly care for it.  Despite our full understanding of this reality, we continue to open new planting beds.  Illustrations in the plant catalogs may influence this madness.  Pictures of perfect plants fill the pages of these catalogs.  Those perfect plants represent the goal of every gardener.  In reality what we grow seldom lives in a perfect world.  Late frost, insufficient or excessive rain, pest explosions or disease, intrusions by wild animals or the neighbor's damn cat in some combination challenge our plants' mission to grow and flower.  Persistence drives us to try again.  This year is less than one full month old and our plants are already stressed by unfavorable weather.  Yesterday the temperature climbed above 50 F degrees.  Excessive rains filled the streams with raging muddy water as more topsoil moves toward the ocean.  Perennial plant crowns have been exposed to repeated freeze thaw cycles devoid of any protective snow cover.

Plant catalogs really sell hope for the future.  Hope that this may be the year when the weather is stable and we manage to stay just slightly ahead of the weeds.  For me, time spent with my hands in the soil is curative both spiritually and physically.  Perfect flowers and sweet scents are just a bonus.  Once again we will trade money for plants and start the cycle once more.

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Gone Again

Once again warm, for January, rain has dissolved our thin snow cover.  Daytime temperatures climbed into the 40s F today and I walked to the back to check on my garlic.  Only two plants have pushed new growth above the still frozen ground but we really need some lasting snow cover.  The amount of stone on the surface surprised me.  There was no time to sift out the stones last fall but I picked and raked stone for hours before planting the garlic.  Only the big stones are gone.  Small broken pieces litter the ground.  Each stone is a reservoir of moisture that will aid the growing plants this summer but any garlic directly under a stone will have to work to reach the surface.

A recent solar flare may create northern lights visible in our part of New York State tonight.  In our three score plus years we remember seeing northern lights on three different occasions.  One of those sightings happened while we were living here in the country.  There are no electric lights near us so our night sky is really dark.  Any cloudless night features a sky filled with stars and planets.  Stars are so numerous that it is difficult to find the constellations.  Add northern lights to our already impressive celestial display and the experience is unforgettable.  We were ready to be dazzled again tonight but as is so often the case all we will see is cloud bottoms.  Still the optimist in us will send us to the windows to look for a hole in the cloud cover.  There is always a chance that the sky will clear.

Through the evening   we looked to the north hoping to see something. There was kind of an unusual pink glow to the thick cloud cover, but I think perhaps it was wishful thinking on our part.

Repaired Stone Walls

This first snow of 2012 was long overdue and most welcome.  With both vehicles shoveled out and the driveway clear, it was time to walk in the snowy woods.  My destination was the area described in an earlier post, Stone Detective.  Just a few days ago the ground was soft and muddy as the frost had been warmed out again.  About the only place to putter was the fallen end of this wall.  Brush was levered out and carried away and the fallen end stones of this wall were  again piled.  No attempt was made to lay the stones in a well tied together wall.  I was simply curious about the shape,size and number of fallen stones.  Proper building will wait until spring but these moss covered stones have an ancient appearance.

Nature has strongly reclaimed this area.  It will require considerable effort to clear around the wall.  The barbed wire fence is on my side of the property line and it will disappear in stages.  The strands of wire will be removed first.  By rolling a two post section of wire into a loop, it can be unrolled and refastened should my neighbor object.  Four separate loops of barbed wire hanging from a fence post may look strange but they will mark a work in progress.  With the wire and brush out of the way, the wall can be built again.

Another earlier post, Tumbled Down Wall, described the repair made here.  The fresh repair was easy to spot as the patina of the two sections were not a match.  A short period of time has made the difference softer.  We will watch to see how long it takes the repair to match the old wall.

There is little question that these are fox tracks.  Most four footed animals make two parallel tracks when they walk.  A fox places its hind foot in the same spot just occupied by its front foot.  The resulting linear tracks have a unique appearance.  Ed had two separate fox sightings yesterday.  Both involved a fox working for its dinner alongside of the road.  One fox appeared much bushier than the other so they may have been a mated pair.  Several years ago we watched foxes mate in the snow on our front lawn.  Perhaps the two seen yesterday were starting to spend time together.  Winter seems new with a long wait until spring but preparations for the next growing season will be soon underway.