When you live beside a wide-open lake, you can’t really tell yourself “It’s a dry cold.” Even on Tuesday morning, with the temperature at –17°C, plenty of moisture rose from the warm waters and condensed on any handy object – tiny dust particles in the air, for example, or leaves and stems in the waterfront marsh.
In the most sheltered areas the frost formed feathery trees more than a centimeter long, but in windswept areas the frost was reduced to tiny glittering crystals.
On warm afternoons strengthening rays of sunshine patiently worked through the thick coatings of ice over driftwood logs.
One at a time drops of water formed at the ends of the icicles, pausing before splashing to the pebbles.
And sometimes the clouds of vapor over the lake come right back down as wet snow. That doesn’t seem to bother our resident geese at all.
Photo at top: Shadow – February 12 (click here for larger view)