Now that we’re getting above freezing during the day and dropping below freezing most nights, it’s starting to feel like a normal Arkansas winter up here. You all might recall my being dazzled by the delicate and varied forms ice took down south; something I didn’t appreciate fully there is that many of those forms depended on this cycle. When weeks go by below freezing, ice becomes monolithic — sheets of ice and blankets of snow. But when the process can start fresh each night, its results are more fleeting and more interesting.
For whatever reason, I’ve had the easiest time finding beauties like these this season in the humblest of places, sidewalk puddles. So I like to call them sidewalk art, crafted not with chalk or spray paint but with bubbles and H₂O.
Soon very different shapes will dominate the outdoors; some are already emerging.
Thanks for looking!
Dan
This has been a winter unlike any I’ve experienced — a cold blast in the minus 20s before wind chill, several feet of snow, weeks below freezing. And all of a sudden it’s gone.
I also went further along the creek than last time, all the way down to where it joins the Mississippi River. An orange bluff there seems to be made of the softest sandstone. People have carved names and designs all over it, of course, but I was more impressed with nature’s own contribution. The rock is covered in tree-like, branching tufts of sandstone powder that crumble to nothing at the slightest contact. Nature always one-ups us.
Happy spring, everyone! I’m as glad as anyone to see it.
This is something like the Minnesota March version of that standard image of a bent-over palm tree. Instead of being on a white, sandy beach, this one’s hunched over something like 2 feet of snow. We’ve gotten 
There are little treasures to find even when it seems like nothing but ice and snow outside.
Viewfinder 