BRRR....

It's a frosty, chilly morning - wonderfully seasonal. This morning when I was out with the dog (about 5:15), the sky was totally clear and the stars bright.  Venus was in the east and Jupiter so big in the west that it looked the size of several of the other stars.  The ground crunched frozen under my feet, and the Rhodies were curled and pendant.  The thermometer agreed that it was chilly - 25 degrees.  

More ice on the pond this morning; there has been some ice for the past few days, but today it covers most of the lower end of the pond (the big part where the dam is) and has reached up here to the middle section (the water flows faster up stream).  I've always wanted to play icebreaker and launch my canoe into the icing water, but alas, my shoulder says I should not; it will have to wait for another fall.  

Meanwhile the cove in front of our house and Carol & Joe's house is mostly clear of ice.  Saturday, the Great Blue Heron hung out there almost all day.  We watched it seeking lunch.  I've never managed to see a GBH catch and swallow so clearly before.  We watched it eat 4 fish. The bird would tilt its head with one eye facing the water (so that it could see more clearly out of its eye without the beak in the way?) and suddenly strike!  This one was good! We only saw it miss once in the time we watched.  After eating a bit, it sat on the shore at our landing.  Further from shore, there was a whole flotilla of black duck in the cove, upending to get plant material and a king fisher flew by chittering.  Five hooded mergansers, 2 males and 3 females were diving; they seemed to be having good fishing as well!  Good to know that the fish are thriving; I read that one of the issues when a pond it covered with the water chestnuts, is that the chestnuts choke the pond, both using too much of the oxygen and also creating mats of vegetation that are hard to swim through.  Hopefully we will be able to keep on top of the water chestnuts from now on!

So do the muskrats swim across the pond when there is ice forming on it?  Gotta watch!
Stay warm, all; and instead of complaining about the cold, bundle up and get out in it and watch nature.

Icing Begins on the Pond