Sunday, November 16, 2025, 33.4*, 89% RH, 0709
Beside the door, glistening, the Behrens metal can keeps melting crystals dry. I don’t try to remove the glazed lid. On the arm of a solar light, shiny bangles, frozen. Starlink dressed in ice, the deck gleams with nature’s high gloss varnish. I can’t see the trees at 5 o’clock. I close the door to the rain. No one goes outside.
No trees are bent or broken, nor wear gloves of ice when it gets light. One step onto the deck, I go back inside for my jar of magic green crystals. Thanks to bowling I can throw handfuls down the ramp from the doorway to part the ice from the wood, to make a path for the three who understand “Easy. No running. Go carefully.” They don’t mind the rain; happy to be dried, to have a biscuit to go to bed again.
Years ago in Norway, Maine, we used ash from the wood stove to melt ice.
Photo: LJ Austin
