There's the barest hint of warmth in the still chilly February air: just enough to turn the hard snow sufficiently soft to make it possible to cross-country ski, but not really enough to cause much melting in the snowpack. Apres ski, I decided to hike into our backwoods to look for tracks, and the snow remains more than a food deep in places, so I really should have been on snowshoes for the little trek. Still, I was able to make my plodding way back to the Noah-sized stream and there, I saw the impact of the slight upward trend in the thermometer. The stream is now running quite hard and fast, but it's well belong freezing at night, so in places, there remains lots of ice configured and re-configured into a variety of intriguing shapes. This little stretch reminded me of a clothesline of socks, all just out of the wash and hung out to, well, freeze-dry.