Geese on Ice

Today at Native Meadow #50

Feb 06, 2026

Here at Native Meadow we were grounded for eight days by a foot of hard ice. Temperatures were shockingly low and surprisingly so was the storm damage. One neighbor figure skated on her lawn.

What usually happens in a southern ice storm is that the ice comes down in a bubble akin to a very tiny water balloon, a frozen rim holding water.

When these ice bubbles hit a power line or a tree branch, they burst, coating whatever they land on with water which then freezes. We’ve all seen this, every branch and bud encased in ice. Beautiful in sunshine though much more likely to break tree limbs and power lines.

Not this last storm. This particular ice fell hard and solid all the way through. We were already sitting under a massive cold front system pushing down from Canada. When our prevailing wind and moisture came up from the Gulf, the result was warm up high and freezing cold closer to the ground.

Up high, it was actually raining, rain that dropped down into an arctic freezer closer to the ground. What this meant was that the rain froze solid and fell straight down. No bursts, no splashes, no ice encasements. Ice as floor.

We were surprised and happy when this heavy fall did not actually lay down the meadow as we plan our big burn again in just a few weeks.

To prepare for the storm, we stacked wood, charged our rechargeable batteries (these are great by the way), tested the generator and, in my case, attempted to lure my adult children home. I got one out of two. Soups were made.

We filled the bird feeder, something we only do in the worst of weather or the depths of February since, in fact, the whole property is designed to be a giant bird feeder. The chickens had to have their water knocked flowing every day. All the birds puffed up to look like 80’s hair dos.

Red Bellied Woodpecker puffed up for cold. Courtney Celley/USFWS

Once the ice fell, as it did steadily for over 24 hours, we didn’t shovel much. Ice is harder and heavier than snow by a lot. The pond froze more and more thickly than I have ever seen it. Our aerators deter solid freezing and so create huge dark eyes of open water.

The Canadian geese left this winter, knowing perhaps, as the wild things do, what we cannot. But when the pond edges froze last year, the geese were still here and I was amazed that they stayed largely on the ice or in the freezing cold water. How do they do that?

The geese rub their beaks into the oil of their preening gland at the base of their tail and then carefully preen and waterproof their dense outer feathers with this oil. Underneath, a thick layer of down.

Standing on one leg and tucking the second up into the belly feathers helps too. The clincher though seems to be a system called counter-current heat exchange in waterfowl legs and feet. In this set up, arteries carrying warm blood down run close to veins carrying cold blood up and this proximity allows for an artery to vein transfer that reduces heat loss.

The birds are on the pond because it is safer from predators. Safer not failsafe. In a flock, not all birds will sleep at once. Some are awake and watching. If the ice breaks, they float away while their heavier predator might be in real trouble.

Take that Mr. Fox. How do you like me now?

It amuses me still to replay how when we approached last winter, the geese just walked further out over the pond until they broke the ice and bobbed down like so many rubber duckies.

The worst of the storm for most of the country was Saturday, January 24, the day that Alex Pretti was murdered on the street in Minneapolis by I.C.E. We saw it. And more of us saw it because we were home.

Some reports indicate that 80% of Americans had seen the video of this execution within a week, millions even before they heard the slander and baseless lies offered by the Trump regime about this tragic death.

Often we are offered numbers about what Americans believe, see or know. Polls and ratings abound. They have always puzzled me in their extrapolating guess work and by how, despite their decreasing accuracy, their effect is real, like a fortune teller who spooks you even when you do not really believe her. More lately, I suspect that pollsters may well be encountering the trickster in American citizens, a sly and lying “you don’t know me”.

Joanne Freeman, fellow historian and co-host with Heather Cox Richardson, for the Saturday morning podcast “What the Heck Just Happened?”, spoke recently about how the storm and its grounding of folks at home impacted how many people saw the videos of Alex Pretti’s death. Thus the storm, as what Freeman referred to as one of the unexpected “quirks” in history, contributed to the impact of Pretti’s loss.

The storm, without political ambition or even moral intent, expanded a justified outrage and necessary alarm within the majority of Americans.

Some say quirk. Some say divine intervention. Some say the earth herself took action. Meanwhile people on ice in Minneapolis create their own counter-current exchange of heat and hope and say S.O.S.

After 8 days there came a slight rise in temperature, just enough to send thunderous slabs of ice and snow roaring down the roofs and landing with house shaking thumps.

It is still very cold. I watch warm from my windows and stand in awe of the wild things who live implausibly and without doubt, honking and chirping, hunting, sleeping in burrows and in stems, waiting to rise up again in spring.

I see the open water eye of the pond, dark, gazing to the heavens, a witness who will never forget.