More Ice

 Winter isn't spent yet. Last night when I crawled into bed, the sky was clearing and a full moon was rising across the field to our east. The headboard of my bed points in that direction so I may always watch a full moon cast a shadow across my bed through the early hours of that special night.
 And because it was clearing, the temperature bottomed out at 12°. Only my south bedroom window responded with the delicate patterns of ice.

 This is the most delicate structure of all, confined to a small section of glass at the bottom of the top pane. It is not extensive. No other window in the house exhibits any ice at all. Look at the variety of the structures, the perfectly straight lines that cross, the pirouettes of ice that seem unsure of which was to turn, the changing angles as the ice builds a pattern.
 In fact, there is no pattern at all. And yet there seems an intricate directive, driven deeper.

 This was shot a few minutes later, just as the sun first touched the pane. The ice will be quickly gone. By 10 am, the air temperature has risen above 20°. Tonight rain is forecast. We will not slip below freezing again in the next few days, The artist retires.

 Five days ago (01/22/13) I took this shot of another window covered with ice. Instead of the delicate patterns I usually see, the window has been ice-washed, a flat monotonous coating of ice. And yet even here, within the flat surface are areas of detail. It's hard to understand how any of this forms.

 If I zoom in on that top structure, the usual delicacy is preserved. Maybe too much moisture was present and the artist was forced to work with a broader brush? And yet it reminds me of the old windows once sold for bathroom use, as a privacy feature. My grandmother had something of this look in her Miamisburg home.
 So, now that the weather is warming, I suppose I'll see no more of this for a while.