A Little Show of Ice

This past winter was a strange and disappointing one for me. Temperatures were much too cold to work in the orchard, and even if I could have managed to tough out the freezing conditions, a state-wide burn ban left me without any means to burn the wood I’d manage to gather in an effort to clean up the orchard. Moisture was scant since the previous summer, and wildfires were a real threat all winter. So, I spent most of my time indoors working on projects that I had put on hold over the summer and autumn months. But that was not the kind of work I preferred to do. I found myself suffering from cabin fever a good bit.

One morning late in February, I was elated to hear about the possibility of freezing rain by afternoon, as any kind of freezing moisture made for interesting photography. I waited as the morning skies turned dark and gloomy, and was hoping for some real action. But by noon, the weather forecast had changed and it seemed we might be getting more of a thin coat of freezing mist if the temperatures held just below freezing. Hopeful that the meteorologist on our local TV channel would be wrong, I watched the skies closely over the next few hours.

Just around three o’clock, I heard small pellets of ice hitting the windows on the north side of the house. It wasn’t long before the thin coating of sleet marked pathways and settled into the crevices of tree bark and branches. Next, a heavy mist moved in, covering the sleet and adding a shiny gloss to the landscape over the next hour. But just as quickly as the mist moved in, it lifted and the skies lightened. Soon, droplets of thawing water trickled from the trees. It sounded like a gentle rain in the woodlands. I realized I would not have long to photograph any of the frozen matter if I did not get moving.

This is the view from our back porch.

This is a path I take daily to the west end of the property. Apparently, I’m not the only one. It was riddled with deer hoof prints!

Animal paths are much easier to find with a little sleet to help outline them!

Maple leaves still cling to a couple of trees along the canyon rim. They sure look beautiful dripping with ice.

Forrest recently cleared a path from the burn pile directly down to the orchard. Normally, it’s a red dirt path!

There were a lot of frozen hoof prints along the pathways that icy afternoon.

The ice has just about melted from this cluster of leaves.

Our neighbor has a thicket of thorny trees of some sort that are a popular haven for birds in the winter. Raptors cannot get to them in that thorny mess, so it’s a protected spot.

This stream always fills fast with a small amount of rain. It empties from a residential area, down into our orchard. I often sit on a nearby felled tree just to listen to water babbling as it moves along.

The ground was still fairly warm so the grasses at the ground did not see the ice that the taller ones did. These clumps could be found all over the pasture area of the orchard.

This is where I cross over the old river channel dike, to head to the west end of the property. Deer and all sorts of other mammals use this path to travel to fields to the south and west.

This elm tree was just beginning to show signs of spring life when the freezing mist hit.

This horrible type of stick-tight is called a Biden. Decorated in ice, they look pretty and inviting!

The pecan trees have a wintry majesty of their own.

By the time I headed towards home, most of the frozen matter had melted.

Water from our yard above the canyon floor, is piped down the slope into a dry creek. I spent a lot of time hauling rock from the old river channel and beyond, to create the channel.

This tree was stunning with a trail of fungus that reached up nearly fifteen feet. A few days later the fungus had dried up and turned dark.

As I ventured along, I tried to walk in open areas to keep away from the dripping melt. I had draped plastic over my camera and zoom lens just in case the wind got up and I might get pelted with droplets of water. I worked fast and furious, and I was glad I did because, in thirty minutes time, all signs of sleet and ice had completely vanished. I slogged through puddles and mucky mud as I headed back to the house. I have photographed much grander ice displays over the years, but this small show of icing was not at all disappointing.

Punkin the squirrel decided to stay in her warm tree nest this day. This is the tree we tried to cut down a few years ago, but found babies in it. So we left the tree and put a roof on the hollow area where the babies were nested. This year, Punkin used the hollow of the tree, which is very near our house, as a nest for her babies.

Punkin did not emerge even though I tried to give her a pecan. I believe she was spending the day indoors keeping her babies warm.

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