Watching Ice Melt

Weather: Several storms passed that dropped a little moisture, but no real snow. Afternoon temperatures have gotten into the high 40s, and the snow from 16 January is slowly melting.

Last snow: 1/16. Week’s low: 16 degrees F. Week’s high: 54 degrees F in the shade.

What’s green: Everything facing north and west is under snow or ice. The junipers, yuccas, and other evergreens, grape hyacinths, vinca, and coral bells are still green.

What’s turned red: Alfilerillo and coral beards tongues.

Tasks: For some reason, the local big box had picnic tables for sale today. Indoors, there were large displays of weed killers clogging the aisle. The corporate headquarters are in central North Carolina. The temperature there today was only about 10 degrees warmer than here. Why would a promotions manager think the whole world was like Florida?

Animal sightings: Footprints in snow show the rabbit now is entering my yard from my east neighbor’s side. My north neighbor has dogs that bark and make a habit of going through their fence to use my drive as an outhouse. The rabbit wasn’t the one to figure out this was the safest way to bypass them. It was a cat who pioneered the path.

Weekly update: Watching ice melt probably ranks with watching grass grow as a metaphor for boredom to a city person. Of course, they probably don’t have to think about how to get out of their house after a storm.

When it snowed 16 January I thought I’d play it smart. I didn’t shovel the snow the next morning. Instead, I thought, since my car was already parked outside the gate, I’d let the snow melt away.

Alas, it turned to ice so high it prevented me from opening the gate.

Late this afternoon I finally went out with a hoe and chopped the ice. Underneath it was a layer of mud.

It’s that time of year when water is trapped between the frozen ground and whatever snow still covers the ground. That snow lies in the shadow of fences, buildings, and shrubs. In my drive, the snow sweeps out around the winterfats, and narrows to ice where no tall plants grow. That area is too soft to walk — or drive — upon.

I thought at first I had created the ice problem for my gate when I built the retaining wall last spring. It wasn’t quite two feet high, but it still created a shadow. I realized instead the shadow was cast by something my neighbor had installed in the area.

I had an area where my feet sank several inches outside the gate. When I looked at it this morning, I realized it was a ramp between the compacted general drive, and the hardened drive to my house that’s several inches lower. The ramp was soft dirt.

I went to the big box to buy some bags of river rock, a fancy word for stones. I dumped some in area of the ramp, and walked over it to get it to sink into the mud.

Then I looked and saw my neighbor’s yard, where a tire had broken through the hardened crust to the mud below. His drive is slightly higher than mine — it’s the reason his dirt drifts down into my drive. The water probably also flows down from the shadow of his house to the ramp and area in front of the retaining wall.

Watching ice melt may not be exciting, but it’s the only way to discover what otherwise is invisible about the workings of wind and water.

Notes on photographs: Taken 27 January 2020.
1. Leaves on Coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea) are still green, under a protective blanket of leaves from a flowering crab apple.

2. Damage done in my neighbor’s drive by driving on soft ground.

3. Snow remains in the shadows of fences and shrubs in my drive.