Monday, February 15, 2010

Ode To The Humble Icicle

I'm the kind of person who believes everything happens for a reason. God moves in mysterious ways, so who am I to complain when something goes wrong? Over and over I've seen Lady Fate turn frowns upside down.
The week before last, I had a cute little post planned with cute little icicle pictures. Then life got in my way and something real happened and I posted about that instead.
Now I know why fate prevented me from posting my icicle pictures by distracting me with a bad morning. Because there was a HUGE HONKING SNOWSTORM COMING THAT WOULD RESULT IN MINDBLOWING UBER- CICLES!!!!! and great would be my glee.

Now I love, love, love snow. I grew up in Miami, whose last snow had been in the early 70's and it didn't stick. A move to Ohio in my teens made the magical wintry wonderlands of my dreams a reality. Snow! Real snow! It looked just like it did on the Cream of Wheat commercials.
However, I have developed a deep, unexpected passion for another of Old Man Winter's creations.


The icicle.
Winter's second banana.
About two weeks before I saw my first snow, I saw my first ice storm. I woke up one day to find everything out side covered in a sheet of ice. I went out to walk in it. (Walking a lot like Maggie Simpson, but you know.)
When I wasn't too distracted with falling on my face, I was observing the fine fringes of icicles suspended from the phone lines, touching everything I could reach, and generally getting my socks knocked off with how gorgeous everything was. I remember imagining that a fairy had come and worked a spell, covering the world with glass. I remember particularly a bush, bare of leaves but dotted with bright red berries, jewel-like in their glossy coating of ice and thinking it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
I was in love.
Oh, the humble icicle. I adore them all, from the fine fairy-like fringe to the gigantoid rippley mutant-cicles...and my house is lousy with them!



I have to brag just a little. Our house has the best icicles in the neighborhood. A few days after a big snow there's a big rippley sheet running down the front of the house. It's the world's most awesome reminder that the gutters need to be done.



As awesome as the front of the house is, though, my favorite icicle spot in the neighborhood is behind the grocery store. The front lot is a blanket of glittering snow marked by a few Kentucky proud teens who run doughnuts in the parking lot shouting "WOOOOOOOO!"

In the back however is a cut in the hill and clinging to the rocky slope is a friggin' majesty of icicles. Icicles of every shape, size and type. A show in and of itself, I could sit there for hours in complete wonder of this icy fairyland behind the Kroger.



Oh, the humble icicle. How I love thee.

6 comments:

  1. Fantatic icicles. We had them for the first time in years this winter and I loved them (but, whispers, just watch your guttering!)

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  2. I've never seen a house with better icicles than yours! Yours definitely has THE BEST!! I loved this post.
    Thanks so much for sharing on Friday's Nature Table.
    Blessings and magic.

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  3. I too love this post and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to photograph icicles. Your post is awesome!

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