Or it surely must have, my friends Sue Pierce and Dan Wall and I believed, when we met at Moreau Lake this past Friday, following several nights that were well below freezing. But we found that most of the lake was still wide open, ice-free enough as yet to welcome large flocks of waterfowl. A thin border of ice lined the shore, but it will be some time yet (and take much lower temperatures) before any ice fishermen can start auguring holes out on the lake's frozen surface, when the ice grows thick enough to bear their weight.
Ah well. . . . At least recent rains and several inches of snowmelt had set Zen Brook to rushing again, as it tumbled down the mountainside. Perhaps we would find some crystalline ornamentation along its banks. We could hear the brook splashing merrily along as we approached.
And sure enough, as the water rushed along, it threw up enough spray to create dangling tongues of ice on overhanging branches.
We each of us stopped every few feet to observe and photograph the brook's both fluid and crystalline beauty.
Overhanging branches grew heavy with multiple accretions of ice.
