Category: A day in the life of a pond

Even if I don't enjoy cold weather and definitely don't want to spend time outside in it, I can enjoy the crisp beauty of blue skies and white snow.

Although it's only a light dusting on the grass, the snow has completely covered the surface of the pond. A little more snow, enough to cover the grass and blur the edges of the pond, and it's easy to see how someone could not notice they were moving from land to water.

That's not snow on the surface of the ice, it's the ice itself.

One of the less spectacular sunsets, snapped quickly with my phone. It doesn't do justice to the real beauty.

Late afternoon the sun glows in the west, illuminating the tree and gently reflecting on the refrozen surface of the pond. My living room windows face west, and any day that's not overcast and hiding the sun, the sunsets are beautiful.

Yes, it's mid-January and there's open water on the pond. It's been an unusually mild winter for here. Despite that, a friend was telling me the other day that some people were already out ice fishing. I'm from Virginia. I don't trust any ice thinner than a glacier for walking on, let alone driving on, … Continue reading Open water

I find these patterns on the ice interesting, and my mind wants to make something of them - a pattern, artwork, or perhaps a message from another planet or another dimension. Sadly, none of these have materialized.

I'm curious about those circles on the ice. In the photo, they look like open water but they didn't when I was looking at them directly. And why those spots and not others?

The snow in the distance, across the pond, doesn't look much different but up close you can see it's been warm enough to clear away the snow on the grass near the house. The closer to the pond, the more snow, and the surface of the pond itself is covered with snow.

You can see the difference in the pond surface since Friday, even though the surface was completely frozen both days. I didn't capture an earlier picture on the first, which showed the surface frozen in some spots and open water in others. It made an interesting pattern, so I'm hoping to see that effect again. … Continue reading Changing on the surface