Along the Frozen River

Well, I asked for it. And we got it: snow and cold, and plenty of it!  Plenty of cold, anyway, with temps falling well below zero each night this week.  And enough snow to blanket the earth and decorate the trees, as these photos taken two days after Christmas reveal.  As soon as the temperature climbed above zero yesterday, I piled on my winter warmies, packed my pockets with chemical handwarmers to keep my camera from freezing, and made my way over to the banks of the Hudson River at Moreau.  There, I strapped on snowshoes and made my way through the woods to the river, amazed to see the water completely frozen over from shore to shore.

The river was frozen over, not just in the quiet bays and coves where I visited first, but also out on the open river, as I discovered when I stopped at the Sherman Island boat launch and walked down to the shore. I'm sure the river's current will shortly open a course in the middle, but on this day there was no open water at all.

I was struck by the lacy ice that topped this snow-covered branch and glistened in the low sunlight.

These bracts from the seed-pods of an Ironwood tree dangled over the bank, as pretty as Christmas ornaments.

These Highbush Blueberry buds looked Christmassy, too, glowing red through their frosty topping of snow.

We had a really beautiful snowfall on Christmas Day, about 8 inches of light fluffy stuff.  But just as the sun came out to add sparkle to the landscape, some fierce winds rose, and soon that immaculate blanket of white was littered with oak leaves and tree seeds.  I recognize these tiny fleurs-de-lis and winged nutlets as the scales and seeds of birch trees (probably Paper Birch).  They do look kind of pretty, observed up close, but I look forward to when the snow's surface is rendered pure white once more with a subsequent coating of new soft snow.