There Is New Ice on the Ponds!

We got a lot of new water from rain in the past few days, and then the temperatures dropped like they saw a state trooper. It was in the teens before we went to bed on Wednesday night, and when I woke up on Thursday morning, I just KNEW there was fresh ice about. I could almost smell it!

So I put on my big coat and my gloves and grabbed my camera and my tunes box, and up the road I walked to the Barrens, to check out the fresh ice on my favorite little vernal pond. Yes, it's still blaze orange season, just for a few more days; so I wore a bright orange, ridiculous looking hat.

The water levels were not nearly as high as I'd been expecting. While it seemed like a lot of rain, it's been so dry here that the water table just sucked it up. There was some ice on my favorite pond, indeed. But the second pond was still nearly empty of water. That was a surprise!

So I came back to my first pond, and I spent a bit of quality time with the gift of fresh ice. I took lots of macro shots, and when I got home, I turned them into ice abstracts. This is one of my favorites in the photo above.

My process for making ice abstracts is this. I take a bunch of macro photos on site using a super vivid mode that saturates with extra color. Then when I get home, I mess with saturation, contrast, darkness, and definition until I get something that's visually pleasing. The ice does ITS part. It just sits there . . . and shines.

Now, when I got the photos onto the computer, I noticed something that had not been as obvious on site. Do you see the tiny dots in that non-frozen leaf shape in the middle? Yeah, that's open water, and yes, it does reflect the blue sky.

The tiny dots in the middle of the water are bugs. In fact, I suspect they are springtails, which can turn the snow (and puddles!) blue in winter time. Springtails play an indirect role in the decomposition of organic matter. It is my personal theory that they also help create the springtime phenomenon I call "pollen rainbows."

I was thinking about Christmassy things, and when I saw the little creatures, I had a silly thought: that I hoped that they, too, would have a merry little Christmas. The image in my mind made me laugh: itty bitty bugs in tiny sweaters, gathered around a Christmas tree, drinking hot chocolate, perhaps, opening gifts. Yes, I like that very much. :-)

Time for a cool jazzy treatment of a Christmas classic. Our soundtrack song is Norah Jones and Laufey, with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.