Fleeting Whimsies

I've had several people ask about the patterns in the photos I posted yesterday.  I took all of those pictures a couple of weeks ago when we had a lovely, but short lived, thaw.  The photos are not actually of a pond, but a low area in the woods where water puddles and pools during wet periods.  The puddles form when the temp goes up enough to melt a lot of snow quickly.  They ice over as soon as the temps drop and then the water seeps out from under the ice, leaving a thin ice shell behind.  When more melt-water arrives, it sits on top of and around the ice.

This photo shows a partial ice shell.  There is still quite a bit of water in it, keeping it from collapsing.  The light colored patterns are air pockets under the ice.  They always form a perfect, concentric tracing of the shape of the puddle.

This one is a partial shell with a lot of little, broken air pockets sitting on top of a bed of old leaves and moss, several inches of fresh melt-water on top of everything and with the trees reflecting on it's surface.

These kind of fragile, ephemeral, transient wonders are some of what makes Spring my very favorite time of year.  I sure hope it comes back soon and stays for a while.