Ice in retreat from the falls

We had a dusting of snow overnight and that was perfect for refreshing my ski trail and for providing a new canvas on which the dark-active animals around here could "paint" their stories. I got out early to photograph tracks, then I went inside to complete a deadline project. With that out of the way, I rewarded myself with a second walk. By late afternoon, the temperature was on the rise, the snow was gone, and the fast moving water was making steady, erosive inroads into the ice that had, earlier, started to overtop it. The resulting sculptures were as dazzling as they were temporary—nature's equivalent of the impermanent mandala paintings intricately executed in colored sand by Tibetan Buddhist monks or Navaho artists then, so goes the tradition, willfully destroyed. This icy artwork is naturally on its way to oblivion. It will soon exist only in my photo catalog.