Overnight, nature and science collaborated to create a winter wonderland on Monday, January 4, 2021.
Fluffy whiteness blanketed the Morrison, IL, landscape, as if sprayed from a film snow machine.
This spectacle was the result of matter changing state.
The physical transformation of a liquid (visible moisture as fog) into a solid (frozen ice crystals) was delightful! Up close, it was even more lovely.
Bristle-brush icicles hung from the soffit.
During the previous night, all around the deck railing, delicate, spiky wisps grew from minute, vaporous, water drops. They are three-dimensional icicles: some singly, some in clusters. For music lovers, they also resemble Nutcracker Ballet ballerinas in the “Waltz of the Snowflakes.” Notice below how individual clusters climbed the downspout, forming a winter garland.
The same morning, Debby Vaughn submitted an appropriate poem, “Song of the Snowlflakes” by Annette Wynne.
We’re very small, we’re very small,
But we can cover the world and all;
We’ll drop one by one in the middle of the night,
And when you awake in the morning light,
You’ll find not a stick or a stone in sight.
We’re very small, we’re very small.
You’ll never hear us as we fall;
We’ll cover the church, and we’ll cover the tree,
And cover the people that come out to see
What a white, white world the world can be!
