I Like Ice

This being an election year, I'm going to resurrect the "I Like Ike" campaign slogan from the Dwight Eisenhower 50's, with a slight twist to make it relevant to climate change.

One of the most expressive features of our backyard, in addition to the duck, the four chickens, and all the native wildflowers, is the collection of miniponds that capture runoff coming in from the neighbors up the hill. One pond in particular, eight feet wide, a foot deep, changes almost daily as temperatures range above and below freezing. Thaw serves as the eraser, and each freeze brings a new creation.

On Feb. 18th and 19th, the pond became a canvas for some particularly unusual patterns. Because the pond is unlined, water can slowly seep down through the semi-permeable clay underneath, creating stresses in the ice as it loses the support of the water beneath it. In one of these photos, one can see how on these particular days the ice actually had two layers, one a couple inches below the other, with ribs creating chambers between them.

The photos should expand for a better view if you click on them.

There were swirls and dots,

feathered edges and interactions between plants and ice,

bearded stars, and lines radiating out from a central point.

This breakaway shows the double deck ice, suspended over the slowly falling water level.

Some patterns were like suture lines in a stitched wound,

ice like sinews, or sinew-like ice,

more swirls and stars,

and a bending 'round the remains of sensitive fern.

From a distance, it looks far less impressive, and would have been missed altogether if I hadn't needed to make the daily morning jaunt to the coop to let the birds out.

Carnegie Ice Before the Snow

Though there are cross-over recreationists who love both skating and skiing, you know you're in the skating camp if an approaching snowstorm brings wistful thoughts of all that gorgeous Carnegie Lake ice about to get covered up.

It wasn't thick enough to skate on, but most of the lake was covered with a glistening smooth initial layer. The winter's brief history, about to be buried under two feet of snow, could be read in the rough ice that got blown into a southeast corner, on the left in the photo.

It told stories of how frozen waves formed, seeming to lap at the hibiscus-lined shore, like a Seward Johnson sculpture,

and of water's restless shifting from solid to liquid and back again, that gathered these chunks together for one in winter's long progression of still-lifes.

Our backyard minipond caught some runoff to make a miniature version of Carnegie Lake, with similar patterns of dark and light ice.

Nice to have H2O as the artist-in-residence in the backyard, with a new snow exhibit about to open, up and down the east coast.

Ice Can Be Naughty or Nice

Work with nature, or it can work against us. That's a truth whether the nature is inner or outer.

This backyard minipond swelled in recent rains, then froze to make attractive patterns.

A different scenario plays out on Linden Lane, where a sump pump discharges into the street, creating a hazard. Meanwhile, the high school's sump pump, a few blocks away, plays the role of ecological hero, discharging serendipitously and safely into a detention basin we converted into a wetland that sustains native plants, frogs, and crayfish.

A shrub like buttonbush can grow right in the water of a backyard minipond. The ice patterns arise from the slow seepage of pond water into the underlying clay, causing the ice to sag.

There's a tendency to want to get rid of sump pump water and runoff as quickly as possible, often adding to downstream flooding. More fun, and beauty, comes from a collaborative approach with nature, finding ways to use the water in the landscape.

When Snowmen Take Over the World

When snowmen take over the world, they will lounge comfortably on the patio in snow-cushioned chairs, munching on snowburgers.

Having had their fill, they will venture out to mend snowfences,

practice up for the next game of snowlax,

take a dip in the snow-lined minipond, ever so briefly so as not to melt,

and, when there is sno more for a snowman to do, take a snooze and dream of snowstorms to come.

Backyard Minipond In Winter

A backyard minipond, essentially a dugout area strategically located to catch runoff from the house or neighbors' yards, serves multiple functions. There's the hydrologic aspect, in that it contributes a tiny bit to controlling runoff in the community. It's greater gifts, though, come in many forms. This pond has attracted an occasional great blue heron and even one time a wood duck, along with robins wanting a bath, and a wayward turtle or frog now and then. Compared to the static nature of the rest of the landscaping, a minipond is particularly dynamic in winter, when it may be open water one day, then frozen into beautiful patterns the next.

Even in a pond just a few feet deep, the experience of peering down into clear waters can evoke a sense of mystery, complexity and depth, which may awaken awareness of similar properties in our minds.

The other day, when the pond ice was an inch thick, my neighbor came over with his two young boys. While we talked, the boys did what boys love to do, which is break the ice, pull the chunks out, drop them on the ground and watch how they broke into pieces. What other material do they encounter that they can break without consequence? As they explored the pond, they tested the ice's strength, assessing the consequences of putting their weight on it. Without even realizing, they were exploring the nature of risk in a place where they could do so safely. They ended up with wet feet, but home was just one door away.

Later, like shaking an etch-a-sketch, a thaw melted the broken ice, leaving a clean slate for the next cold spell to work its frozen magic.

These are some of the beauties of a backyard minipond.

(Note: Beginning in April, I'll be teaching a mini-course on miniponds and other ways of utilizing runoff in the landscape, at the Princeton Adult School.)

H2O's Backyard Residency

Today, before spring takes over, a reach back into winter to offer up a pictorial paean to the most creative molecule on earth, H2O, which here uses the minipond in the backyard to craft its endless permutations of beauty.

One day the pond looks like this, with a curious granular form of snow fallen on dark ice.

The next brings melting and reconfiguring into new hues and patterns.

The variety in the patterns owes in part to the underlying clay, which by absorbing the water very slowly causes the ice to drop gracefully in terraces.

Air gets trapped underneath, changing its shape minute

to minute.

In the paved world out the front door, snow, sleet and ice are a burden to be grappled with, but around back, where there's no pavement to be kept clean, no place that needs to be gone to, water in all its forms acts as artist in residence, conducting workshops on wizardry in the backyard pond.

Patterns in a Backyard Pond

A backyard minipond serves as a canvas for nature's artwork in the winter. Embedded in the beauty is many a physics lesson: the rock that melts the ice above, the leaf that melts the ice below, the bubbles trapped beneath and within, and the forces at work in forming all those loops and squiggles.

The impulses of kids to walk on ice or try to break it are safely explored on a shallow minipond like this.

We were surprised to discover that beneath the ice was not water but air. After the ice forms, the water beneath continues to be absorbed into the underlying soil, leaving a gap.

Shad, Wood Ducks and a Reptile

I would love to report that shad are running in my minipond, which I dug where a small tributary of Harry's Brook once flowed, before my backyard was a backyard. The brook is connected to the Millstone River, which flows into the Raritan River, which empties into the ocean just south of Staten Island.

Who knows if shad ever made it up to my neighborhood, but the blooms of a solitary shadbush in the backyard tell me that somewhere the shad are running. The shrub is also called serviceberry, and will have delicious berries later in the season.

Migrating fish have lost my ecological address, but a lot of other wildlife have found it. Though the shad didn't make the walk up to my miniponds, I was surprised and flattered by a visit from a couple young wood ducks the other day. That was a first.

There was also a return visit from another wild creature who did make the walk, and whose presence doesn't so much flatter as cause the heart to flutter. Just beneath the reflection of trees on the water's surface, a reptilian presence soaked up some afternoon rays.


A snapping turtle, some 14 inches long, though who's going to try to measure. I thought he had left last year, but is back, bigger than before. We may take him for a short ride back down to the creek.