A Thin Coat of Icing

Just when I really wanted to complain one more time about the harsh winter we're enduring this year, Larry and I found ourselves on the highway recently, oohing and ahhing about the beautiful layer of hoarfrost that delicately covered every branch and blade of tall grass in our sight. It looked like a thin coat of icing or frosting on every surface. I am admittedly a spring sort of person. I can't wait for the snow to give way to grass and the gentle shades of green that will make themselves known, but I just couldn't get over the beauty of the hoarfrost that day. Everything has to be just right in order for hoarfrost to form, which seems to be a miracle unto itself.  According to the online Encyclopaedia Brittanica, hoarfrost are ice crystals deposited onto objects that are exposed to the air. Hoarfrost "is formed by direct condensation of water vapour to ice at temperatures below freezing and occurs when air is brought to its frost point by cooling."  Moisture is the key to the formation of hoarfrost, in that if you don't have enough moisture in the air, the hoarfrost can't form.  I'm still ready for spring, but in the meantime, I was reminded on that highway ride to stop, pause and take in the beauty that nature provides every day.

A Visit From Jack Frost

There was magic on the first day of winter last Saturday.  As I awoke and looked out the window, I was greeted with a fairy tale scene of hoarfrost coating every tree and shrub. Jack Frost had arrived. There before me was a dazzling sketch in charcoal, white, gray and silver.  My day's activities took me out into the countryside to the home of a good friend who had invited me to see the ice castle creation she had built on the deck.  Kitty's creativity seems to know no bounds.  She had emailed me throughout the week, recounting her experiments to construct such an ice sculpture.  The castle, complete with turrets, rounded windows and two drawbridges, was a magnificent crystal diorama made even more beautiful by the white lights that back-lit the structure.  Against the hoarfrost, it was as if the castle was from a fantasy world.  I didn't want to pull myself away from the beauty of that castle and the scene surrounding it, but other activities were on the schedule. After caroling, shopping, saying farewell to a friend who had recently passed, visiting other friends at our local nursing home and attending a party, Larry and I ended the magical day with a winter solstice event at Devil's Lake State Park. Truly, I could think of nowhere else I wanted to be on that longest night, celebrating the start of winter and the incremental return of daylight.  We joined new-found friends around the campfire, sharing stories and roasting marshmallows.  There were no stars overhead, as a snowstorm was coming our way.  The sky was thick and had a pink hue to it.  Whatever storm pattern was moving toward us was going to be big.  The sky told us so. And so the snow came, white and silent, reminding us that winter had indeed arrived, filled with hoarfrost, pink skies and an ice castle that made it all enchanting. 

Jack Frost

With a stealthy arrival and departure, Jack Frost visited our community recently, leaving an absolutely magnificent layer of hoarfrost behind on the landscape.  Set against a dense and overcast sky, each evergreen was tipped with white, while the frost literally clung to every surface of the deciduous trees' branches.  I happened to be in the car, seeking a shortcut back to my office, when I encountered this frosty fairyland.  Instead of getting back to work faster, I felt myself slowing down, taking in the beauty all around me.  Classical music playing on my car radio seemed to have been tuned to my surroundings, creating an enchanting, albeit brief, visual and aural departure from my everyday world.  There are so many unexpected pleasures in life when we're open to them.  I was grateful to have had such a gift handed to me during my attempt at hurrying that morning.