Mountain Times - Vol. 49, No. 53 - Dec. 30, 2020 - Jan 2, 2021

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Columns 36 • The Mountain Times • Dec. 30, 2020 - Jan. 5, 2021 Hair ice and frost flowers, ephemeral frozen forms abound If you are out walking on an early winter morning, you might be lucky enough to see some of nature’s most beautiful and ephemeral sights: hair ice and frost flowers, both snow-white and delicate against the dull forest floor. Recently, a friend sent me a photo of hair ice, seemingly sprouting from a rotten log in the woods. She guessed she was seeing tufts of deer or rabbit fur The Outside Story By Laurie D. Morrissey curled around a branch – until she touched one and it melted. Hair ice forms on dead wood, aided by the presence of the Exidiopsis effusa fungus. Scientists believe that as the fungus breaks down the wood of a broad-leafed tree species, it produces complex molecules that mix with the water in the stem. Moisture near the surface of the dead branch or log is extruded from the pores of the wood and freezes into thin hairs of ice, which build up overnight into what looks like a tuft of wool or a white, shiny beard. Frost flowers are similar, but occur on the stems of certain plants. They may resemble white ribbon candy, flowing curtains, swanlike sculptures, serpentine swirls, silky spirals, or glossy fans. Despite the name, they’re neither flowers, nor frost. While true frost occurs when moisture in the air condenses on a cold surface, these fanciful shapes result when sap, augmented by water drawn up from the roots, slowly pushes through the stem of an herbaceous plant and freezes on contact with the cold. They form most often near the base of the stem, but may extend further up. Frost flowers occur so infrequently that many woods walkers never see them. Their rarity is largely due to the limited circumstances that create them. The ground must be warm enough for the plant’s root system to be active and the air must be cold enough to freeze the water flowing up its conductive tissues. However, it’s not uncommon for them to form in the same area night after night, to the delight of those early morning perambulators lucky enough to spot them. New Hampshire’s state botanist, William Nichols, knows of only a few northeastern United States plant species that form frost flowers: the native Canada frostweed, which occasionally occurs in central and southern New England in dry, open fields and woodlands; the non-native wingstem crownbeard, which has naturalized in Massachusetts; and the rare sweet-scented camphorweed. Of these, only Canada frostweed creeps into central and northern New England, he said. Frost flowers also have been observed on certain garden plants, such as vinca and salvia. Frost flowers have appeared in the botanic literature since at least the early 19th century and, surprisingly, are not strictly northern phenomena; they occur as far south as Georgia. They are the subject of much scholarly research and even have a scientific name. The late Robert Harms of the University of Texas, Austin (a linguist, not a botanist), coined the term “crystallofolia” in the 1960s because he Looking Back By Mary Ellen Shaw believed the forms resembled leaves (Latin folia). James Carter, an Illinois State University geologist, became fascinated by frost flowers when he spotted them while hiking in Tennessee in 2003. He described four products of ice segregation in nature: ice flowers on plant stems, hair ice on dead wood, needle ice in soil, and pebble ice on small rocks on the ground surface. He refers to ice that extrudes from linear cracks on plant stems as ice flowers and ice ribbons rather than frost flowers, but notes that there is no widely accepted term. (I’ve come across such labels as ice fringes, frost freaks, and rabbit ice to describe frost flowers.) Carter writes that he knows of about 40 species worldwide that support the growth of ice flowers. He is, perhaps, the world’s only ice flower farmer; the professor has planted white crownbeard and salvia in buckets and flower beds in his yard and photographed the formations that appeared. Now that we’re well into winter, the opportunity to see frost flowers or hair ice is most likely past for the time being. I may have to wait until next November to spot these fleeting, frozen forms, but I plan to be on the lookout. Laurie D. Morrissey is a writer who lives in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. Illustration by Adelaide Tyrol. The Outside Story is assigned and edited by Northern Woodlands magazine and sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: nhcf.org. Dating is often a time when you try to be good at something…even when you are not! With ski season just beginning I am reminded of my diehard attempts to strap on skis and get from the top to the bottom of Pico. It’s not that I had never skied before, it’s just that I was never any good at it! I had skied with my female friends since the 50s and will admit that the rope tow at the Rutland Country Club was about my speed. A lot of us learned to ski there and our only goal was getting from the top to the bottom in an upright position. We were especially glad when we stopped at the foot of the By Gary Salmon French and Indian War blockhouse recreation in New York. transparency This headline is not related to politics. The term is the goal of people who make windows for homes and businesses and the clearer the better for those of us looking through a pane of glass. Early glass windows were limited in size and had “waves” Tree Talk By Gary Salmon Seeking in them due to the primitive glass making process. As time progressed so did clarity and in more recent years the focus has been on a window’s thermal qualities as related to overall house heat savings. Now I may be condensing time here since glass has been around as a popular item since the bronze age but glass has been a part of our lives for centuries as that item that allows light into the insides of our houses and workplaces. Glass has always been created using silica (sand), soda ash, and limestone as the basic ingredients combined with some high heat to transform these materials into something to see through. This float glass process makes sheets of glass. But make way for a new “glass on the block” with wood as the basic property, according to researcher Junyong Zhu from the Forests Products Lab November 2020 issue of “The Forestry Souce.” Zhu in collaboration with fellow researchers at both the Universities of Maryland and Colorado have “developed a transparent wood material” that could “outperform glass.” According to The Forestry Source “The researchers created transparent wood by treating balsa wood in an oxidizing bath that bleaches it of nearly all visibility. A synthetic polymer called polyvinyl alcohol is then Attempts at becoming a skier! Tree talk > 38 hill because if you didn’t you would end up in East Creek! Then in 1974 along came Peter, my future husband. Skiing was one of his passions so I knew my life was about to get interesting. When he picked me up for our first date I noticed that his license plate said “QASI.” I immediately thought of the Latin word, “quasi,” meaning “what if.” I had been a Latin major in college so that’s where my mind went! But where was the “u?” I asked about the plate and found out that those letters stood for “Qualified Amateur Ski Instructor.” It’s a program that certifies a skier to teach on an amateur level. Looking back > 39
The Mountain Times • Dec. 30, 2020 - Jan. 5, 2021 COLUMNS • 37 The Movie Diary By Dom Cioffi I take great joy in decorating my house for the holidays. It’s a lot of work, but it’s all worth it when the lights are on, the tree is up, and the house is filled with Yuletide imagery. I decorate early (usually the day after Thanksgiving) so I can enjoy the atmosphere I’ve created for several weeks. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to sit in front of my fireplace with holiday music playing, scented candles burning, and my surroundings awash in decorative lighting. Throw in a gingerbread cookie and some eggnog and I’m fully gratified. But then, Dec. 25 rolls around and the reality of deconstructing my personal Christmas village seeps in. Setting everything up coincides with the excitement of the ensuing holiday season; tearing everything down coincides with the reality that a new year is about to start, and work with all of its pressures are about to kick in. This year, I started breaking things down the day after Christmas. This was not my original plan. My wife initiated the process when she collected several holiday It happened on a bluebird day in March, as we were descending from the summit of Mt. Washington. We watched as an old mountaineer stepped out of the clouds below, diligently following the rocky, snow covered trail. He walked slowly, the long wooden handle of his mountaineering axe serving more like a cane than a safety device. His long down coat was so worn and faded, it seemed as if he had borrowed it from a museum instead of pulling it from his own closet. For a moment, we felt as though we were watching a ghost ascend the trail, but then a most beautiful thing happened. Arriving at the top of Lion’s Head, a rocky landing that overlooks the Tuckerman Ravine, the old mountaineer stopped. We watched as he turned his attention from the trail and turned instead toward the valley below. Still convinced he might be a ghost and not wanting to disturb him, we paused in our descent. For what might have And now, the end is near n some ways it was actually easier this year, given the cessation of travel and the cancellation of countless holiday parties. Howl into the wind Livin’ the Dream By Merisa Sherman chachkas and set them on the stairs. She didn’t ask me to un-decorate, but her actions clearly pointed to her desire to put a fork in the season. I took the bait and pulled out one of the containers in the attic. I was only going to put away the items on the stairs, but before I knew it, I was tearing apart the whole house. Four hours later and I had the majority of my inside decorations packed away and everything cleaned. I will sheepishly admit to having an artificial Christmas tree. I grew up in a household that shunned anything but a real tree, but when I got cancer several years ago and couldn’t function, my wife made the decision to purchase a fake one, thinking it would be easier. And like everything my wife does, she spared no expense. I have to admit, the tree she purchased is beautiful. It’s 8-feet tall and a beautiful replica of a balsam fir – the quintessential Christmas tree. It’s also loaded with white lights that are preinstalled and wired in such a way that if one bulb goes out, the rest of the strand stays lit. Of course, there are downsides to artificial trees, namely, setting them up and putting them away. I revel in the memory of dragging my real trees outside and tossing them over the bank to naturally rot. Now, I have to break down my artificial tree and struggle to push the pieces inside the gigantic carrying bags. It sounds easy enough, but the fact is, it’s an exhausting activity. And then I have to muscle the bags upstairs and into the attic. Inevitably, I will break a multitude of tree lights in the process, but I won’t have to deal with that until next November. After I finished clearing out the interior of my house, I laid down and took a long, well deserved nap. The next morning, I got up, had a cup of coffee, and then walked outside to look at my outdoor decorations. The thought about climbing up and down the ladder multiple times didn’t sit well with me, but I decided it had to be done. been an hour, he stood silently staring outward before we heard a harrowing sound echo through the mountains. The old mountaineer was yodeling. It wasn’t a cheery yodel, like you hear from Goofy as he tumbles down a cliff or at an après ski party in the Swiss Alps, but a sorrowful, harrowing yodel that breaks your heart. I felt a tear roll down my face and had to sit down from the impact of the sound. The BF grabbed my hand and our golden retriever, Vespi, came to snuggle between us as we sat, spellbound, and listened to the old mountaineer’s song. As he passed us, it was like looking at a ghost. His faded clothes, his heavy, wooden gear and his old hemp rope were signs of decades ago and he himself seemed to only exist in black and white. Had we stepped back in time or had he come forward? Or had time cease to exist on the ridgeline of this old mountain? We honestly Livin’ the dream > 39 I asked my son for some help and he obliged. Honestly, I don’t need any assistance with the task, but it gives me an excuse to have him around. It took us a couple hours to get everything down and packed away. When the final container was stacked in our supply room, I went inside and took another nap. There’s something incredibly soothing about naps after you’ve completed manual labor. Maybe it’s just me, but those are the most restful breaks. As I was dozing off, I reviewed the prior month. The holidays of 2020 will be long remembered given the influence of the Covid pandemic. In some ways it was actually easier this year, given the cessation of travel and the cancellation of countless holiday parties. It was also hard not being around family as much (but even that has its advantages). Not being around family is one of the dominant themes of this week’s Netflix feature, “The Midnight Sky,” a sci-fi drama based on the 2016 novel, “Good Morning, Midnight,” by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Directed by and starring George Clooney, “The Midnight Sky” follows a terminally ill scientist who is stranded at a polar outpost while the rest of the planet suffers through an extinction level event. If the scientist can warn a returning space mission about the earth’s demise, humanity may have a chance of survival. As is typical with any Clooney project, this is a wellacted and executed motion picture, delivering on a multitude of levels. Its crafty storyline will also offer up some interesting surprises at the conclusion. Check this one out if you love sci-fi with a heady edge. A chilling “B” for “The Midnight Sky.” Got a question or comment for Dom? You can email him at moviediary@att.net. There are always risks After a year of living with the fear of Covid-19, many investors are hoping 2021 will bring a return to “normal,” even if the new normal may not be exactly like the old one. Optimism about the future has many investors feeling bullish, according to most of the sentiment surveys listed in Barron’s last week. Financial Times reported, “Almost universally, fund managers believe the year will bring a rebound in economic activity, supporting assets that have already soared in value since the depths of the pandemic crisis in March, but also lifting sectors that had been left behind. Bond yields are expected to stay low, lending further Money Matters By Kevin Theissen support to stock valuations.” This doesn’t mean 2021 will be risk free. In its December market sentiment survey, Deutsche Bank asked more than 900 market professionals about the biggest risks to global financial markets in 2021. Here are the concerns they highlighted: • 38 % – Virus mutates and vaccines are less effective • 36 % – Vaccine side effects emerge • 34 % – People refuse to take the vaccine • 34% – Technology bubble bursts • 26% – Central banks end stimulus too soon • 22 % – Inflation returns earlier than expected It’s possible none of these will occur and investors will sail smoothly into and through the new year. We hope that’s the case and next year brings with it a return to normal. Just remember, normal doesn’t mean risk-free. In 2021, investors will still need to balance risk and reward on the journey toward their financial goals – just as they do every year. Kevin Theissen is the owner of HWC Financial in Ludlow.
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Mountain Times - Vol. 49, No. 53 - Dec. 30, 2020 - Jan 2, 2021

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