Past Inside the Present

Today I returned to the place I visited in my last post… mostly curious to see how the creek was interacting with below freezing temperatures after having been mild recently.  The first pictures here are the rocks I used for the balance in my last post. Since then they’ve been consumed ice since as the temps drop…

I began noticing more rocks in the area had undergone a similar icing as these.. Experiencing ice frozen to the rocks is a new experience this year as I’ve made a point to visit and observe the creek all year round.  It is awesome to see how specific weather conditions can open doors to unforeseen possibilities…  Working with ice has quickly become very intriguing, and I love the aesthetic.

So now I have many rocks that have been sticking out of the water slightly during the freeze and have accumulated a very hard shell of ice… all the while maintaining a solid rock surface underwater… The rocks have essentially grown temporary extensions, that will not melt, and are extremely hard.

I have to mention that yesterday I found a pair of neoprene ice fishing gloves and decided to try them out today… they work GREAT!!.. and possibly the only way to work in this environment and weather. When I referred to extreme stacking a few posts ago, that was nothing compared to today…ha.

I experimented with balancing the ice covered rocks and soon found myself exploring a new dimension (for me) of stone balance.. The temperature was so cold that the ice could naturally “glue” two rocks together if they were sitting close enough in the creek during the recent ice formation. I found a couple pairs of naturally forming “ice-glued” rocks and was ecstatic to balance them.. :)  On one of the pairs, the two rocks are not actually touching each other, but the ice is so strong that it braces them together like concrete.