Baby, It's Cold Outside!

This picture was taken about 4:00 yesterday afternoon.  Not a good sign of things to come.  :(

I thought this ice with bubbles was so pretty!  It is about an inch thick and solidly frozen.  I usually leave water out in a plant saucer for the wildlife.

We had been below freezing for about 40 hours, and I always get ravenously hungry for down-home cooking when it's this cold.  I decided to make chicken and dumplings.  :)

My 19-year-old twins and I nearly finished off the entire pot!  I didn't get fancy with vegetables, just used salt, pepper, and seasoned salt in the broth.  We had rolls and butter, too.  It seemed like a feast on a cold night!

Well, it's a good thing I fixed a hearty meal.  Last night we shattered a 97-year-old temperature record of 15 degrees. Not sure what the actual low was, but at 7:00 this morning, it was 10 degrees!  And my hose bib now looked like this, with icicles hanging down.  And so did two others.  Keeping fingers crossed that I won't have to call a plumber when the arctic front finally departs this area sometime tomorrow afternoon.

I decided to go check on the frostweed in my wild garden.  Frostweed is a homely plant most of the year, tall and gangly with coarse leaves.  But during a sudden cold snap, it does a fascinating thing.  It extrudes ribbons of ice from the ribbed stem.  This patch of frostweed has ice formations only at the base, most likely because it had already repeatedly frozen.

The ice ribbons are exquisite!  I was trying to capture them backlit by early morning sun.

Chiquita is curious about everything!

Not one to give up easily, she's determined to get a drink from this solidly frozen disc of water!  She's quite happy when it's this cold, and her fur explodes in thickness!

Tonight it's predicted to be 10 degrees again!  Oh joy.