Quote of the Day (Henry David Thoreau, on Walden Pond in Winter)

“Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more. Standing on the snow–covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way first through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window under my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight sky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet is well as over our heads.” — American essayist, naturalist and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Walden (1854)

Photo of the Day: After the Big Freeze

I suspect that more than a few relatives and friends in different areas of the country are saying right now, “You think your weather is bad? Wait’ll you hear about mine!”

Still, what we had in the New York area on Friday and Saturday was one of those stretches that meteorologists come up with fancy new names for. It started on Friday with the plunging temperatures accompanied by winds that could have come out of that twister from The Wizard of Oz. By Saturday morning, the temperatures had plunged into the single digits.

I didn’t go outside until Saturday afternoon, when I heard the thermometer was going to exceed 10 degrees outside—a veritable heat wave, in my book.

Thankfully, this time, the cold spell was comparatively brief. By late this afternoon, a bunch of stir-crazy people had, like me, gone over to Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ, to get some exercise for themselves or their dogs. (It was an open question which needed it more.)

I could see some evidence of the thaw not just in the number of people venturing outside, but on the extent of the ice in the adjacent Overpeck Creek. Had I been crazy enough to go by yesterday (braving frostbite, I might add), that stream would have been frozen solid.

But when I took this photo this afternoon, I took some comfort—as I hope you will now—in cracks in the ice that were forming. The best sign of hope for me would be a raft of ducks blissfully together, unvexed by ice as they swim in the stream once again.

Photo of the Day: Ice in Pools

“Before the ice is in the pools,
      Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
      Is tarnished by the snow,
 
Before the fields have finished,
      Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
      Will arrive to me!”—American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), “XLV [Before the ice is in the pools]”
 
This afternoon, temperatures rose to just below the freezing mark—a marked change since this past Friday, when they dropped 50 degrees within a few hours (and felt worse with the wind chill factor).
 
I took the opportunity to walk around Overpeck County Park, a few miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. 

Though it felt more inviting to walk around, even in the half hour just before sunset, the ground still felt crunch rather than soggy—and, as seen in this photo I took, the 10 or so other walkers in the park and I have to be careful in spots, where the water from last week’s dense rainstorm had collected to form a Dickinson-style ice pool, just in time for Christmas.

Photo of the Day: Icy Wooded Way, NJ

In my neck of the woods in Northern New Jersey this winter, more so than in my childhood, the weather has tended less towards snow than what the weather forecasters call a “wintry mix”—i.e., some combination of snow, rain, freezing rain and sleet. There might be less of the white stuff on the ground, but that doesn’t make it necessarily easier to take.

What I’m talking about is ice, like what we had Friday night into Saturday morning. For the first time that I can remember, the local news stations’ meteorologists were explaining how an uptake of, say, 0.19” versus 0.3” of ice could lead to more of the crystal clinging to wires—and causing power outages.

And that’s not even the getting into walking or driving on “black ice.”

So far this season, I’ve been grateful not just that this “wintry mix” has occurred on weekends, but also during a period when I could work remotely. This means that I haven’t had to drive to work in uncertain, shifting conditions for nearly an hour before the sun even comes out in the morning.

So, Saturday morning, I waited—and waited—until the snow on the street and sidewalk across from my home increasingly melted. At 10 am, beginning to get cabin fever, I walked out to my driveway for a quick trip to the store. Even at that point, I was careful to grab hold of my car to keep from falling—something I might have survived without serious mishap when younger, but much less likely now.

By mid-morning, the ice was in retreat. But you could still see evidence of it on the ground, as I did when I photographed this wintry, grassy corner in Tenafly, near the Roosevelt Common.

During the spring, summer, fall, and even warmer winter days, parents are likely to take their kids and dogs, happy to have the protection of tree branches. But by mid-afternoon on Saturday, this section of the park was empty, with the trees casting lonely shadows on the ground. For those willing to brave the wind chill in the teens, the sight of all this ice would have been the last straw, forcing a fast rethinking of their plans.

Photo of the Day: Icy Tree Branches, December Night

On the way home from work tonight, passing through a park in my hometown in a New Jersey suburb, I was struck by the way tree branches were illuminated against the backdrop of a traffic and street  lights, and promptly snapped this picture.

Photo of the Day: Frozen Duck Pond, Saddle River County Park, Ridgewood NJ

“NO FEEDING THE WATERFOWL,” a sign forbids at the wild duck pond next to the parking lot for Saddle River County Park in Ridgewood, NJ. As you can see from the accompanying photo—taken on Sunday, when I also took this one I posted yesterday—that command was beside the point: Even with warming temperatures that produced thin ice, there was no waterfowl to be found anywhere near the pond.

Nevertheless, the landscape all of this produced was picturesque, I think you’ll agree.