Icy Amusements

Ho hum.  A winter without any snow can be really boring.  No skiing or sledding or snowshoeing or following animal tracks in the woods.  But lucky for me, I am easily amused.  And even luckier for me, I not only have the wonderful Moreau Lake to explore in every weather, I also have a congenial pal named Sue to enjoy exploring it with me.  We met for a walk at the lake this morning and were delighted to see the water completely frozen over.  Not thickly enough to cross as yet, but perfect for ambling along on close to shore, where we could see straight down to the lake bottom under crystal-clear ice.  Here's a view of the lake from the new deck of a cabin that hangs right over the water.  Over the ice, today.  (Lucky the campers who rent this cabin next summer!)

Here's Sue trying to take a video of the hundreds of minnows that clustered close to shore, exploding away at our footfalls above them, faster than we could capture a photo of them.

I loved looking down through the ice at the many-colored stones, their beauty intensified by the crystalline water.

A frozen lake presents many puzzles, such as what caused these bulges of clear ice to form around the base of plant stalks?

Or what caused these jagged patterns of frosted and clear on the surface of the ice? 

Here was an interesting patch of clear dark circles polka-dotting an area of white opaque ice.

The pattern above is just the reverse of what we expect to see.  Usually, ice bubbles are opaque white  as they stack up in layers within the dark clear ice .  We found lots of bubbles like that, each one prettier than the last.

Here was a distinct trail of bubbles that formed as a creature swam under the ice.  And what could that creature be?

Most likely the creature that takes shelter under this heap of sticks and leaves, a muskrat lodge.

Aha!  More evidence that a muskrat has been about, dragging its skinny tail through the slushy ice before it froze hard.

And here is the muskrat in the flesh, resting under the boat dock near the beach.  Of course, it dived into the open water before I could get a closer shot.

At this point, we were more than half-way around the lake, but we had to hurry on so that Sue could get to work on time.  We'd spent a long time dallying on the bridge between the lake and the back bay, marveling at the howls and pings and cracks and groans that lake ice makes as it freezes, sounding like a battle out of Star Wars.  As I said before, we are easily amused.