Concentric rings of ice form over receding creek water and leave thin crackly plates so satisfying to break and yet too beautiful to touch. In subzero air, vapor crystallizes from the cracks, feathers of ice form interlaced designs and sometimes, after a thaw and freeze, frogs are embedded on the surface.
We skate on the smooth black ice of Indian Creek outside the northwest corner of the Adirondacks. This happens so rarely I remember the last time doing this with friends, marveling at the ice bubbles and cracks, the plants and fish below the surface, and the holes where otters left shells of freshwater clams on the edge. The ice boomed as it cracked and shifted. This time,
