The temperatures here yesterday afternoon shot up to 35 degrees with a wind chill in the high 20s. That feverish turn-around from the mind-piercing Arctic blast the day before was all the excuse that I needed to pull on the old boots and see what the icy invasion did to our woods.
The streams were frozen-over, as you see above, but not frozen-through; you could hear the water chortling below the ice. The floor of some parts of the woods looked like it needed a good sweeping:
There were conifer seed cones and needled branch tips, dead branches and dead treetops, and flecks of bark and twigs littered everywhere. Apparently, the ice weight and high winds were too much for vulnerable areas.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 5, 2023.)