Ice on the shore of the Marsh
Frozen Marsh
I’m always amazed at the changes in our ponds as the seasons progress. This last week, we were punished with fierce winds reaching over 90 kph (55 mph) for three straight days, and then we got a one-day snowstorm followed by a day of snow and rain. Varied weather that is winter in Nova Scotia.
But the marsh changes too. Because of the lack of snow this year, we haven’t had a storm with more than 10 cm (3 or 4 inches) of snow yet, the insulating properties of that layer of winter are not there. I wrote last week of the cat tails and how they amazingly stand there anyway, but this week, a different phenomenon took my eye. The marsh has been open almost all winter! Normally by now we’d have seen the entire pond freeze over and perhaps witness the foxes taking a short-cut and running across the ice. The geese and ducks would be long gone, and the surface would be sometimes thick enough that we could walk to the seashore.
Not this year.
The weird weather has kept at least parts of the marsh with water flowing. So, when the really strong winds came, we had an interesting occurrence – the water blew across the ice and came to rest rolling against the shoreline and the reeds and bushes there. And then froze!
The temperature was so cold that even though it didn’t freeze the open water quickly, when the sheets of water were lifted onto the ice, they cooled and when they slowed against the shore, they froze solid. The result was little dome shaped icicles all along the shore. Ice hanging from every shrub and bush, sloping down to the ice encrusted shoreline.
Nature is continually amazing to watch, and beautiful to behold if we take the time to do it!
