New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
The Suncook begins its winter slumber.
Tuesday 12/20/2005
Silently the Suncook River is beginning its winter slumber. The temperature read 6 degrees this morning. As I looked past the digital thermometer through the window, whose sill it sits upon, I could see the Suncook had frozen over solid last night. This is the first time that I have seen even the ribbon of moving water waving down the center of the river skimmed over with ice. The river always freezes over first around the bend from my house down river. Then slowly the frozen blanket of ice seems to be pulled up river coating all that I can see. Almost like pulling a blanket of ice over itself for the winter. This afternoon when I got home just before dark, on what is just one day from the years shortest day, the center of the river again was rippling with flowing water. So winter's grip slipped a little today as the sun tugged the icy blanket back down river a couple hundred yards. Unless we get a real warming trend, winter will surely win out putting the river I love to watch every day into some still-photo scene. Not much changes on a daily basis on an ice covered surface. Rarely do I see any living creature, perhaps the local bank beaver, or tracks of a fox or coyote.
But the river speaks more each frigid night than any other time of year. The thickening ice pops, groans, growls and snaps much of the winter. So I must switch from watching to listening to the river for the next three months.
Some years back my friend Rick and my son Adam and I walked the rivers surface on gin clear ice the mile or so from here to his house. Not something I regularly do as I don't consider river ice very safe. But that year there was no snow to hide a blemish that could give under our weight. And what a trip it was. Leaves, the few remaining leaves, all danced below or feet as we walked down. The river runs much clearer under its layer of ice. I have never seen it as clear before or since. Each of us has mentioned that hike several times over the decade and a half or more since we did it.
Life has definitely shifted into low gear outside lately. Last Thursday morning I awoke to a thermometer reading MINUS 13 degrees. We flirted with zero for several days, then a slushy mix moved in for a day. Not much for tracks as I travel about. The local turkeys I'm sure have found a bird feeder to satisfy their winter needs. This icy crust has put life on hold it seems. Even the landscape is looking more like the desolate surface of the frozen Suncook River. I'm sure glad the sun will be turning the corner and heading towards spring starting Thursday. I'd give it a push if I could.
