Our friend and Fin Family Moominbeach neighbor, Paulette, wrote about the spectacular ice formations on the beach in a comment yesterday and mentioned possible plans to take some pictures. Of course, I jumped at the chance to ask for some. Rocket trips to the moominbeach are not all that easy when the snow flies and I am still coughing up crud from the virus of the week and the GG shows some signs of getting the virus of the week and we still hadn’t taken down the xmas tree, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Anyway, I am quite happily stuck on the Planet Ann Arbor this weekend. Picking away at cosmic debris, shoveling snow, cooking veggie enchiladas, shoveling snow, and generally lying low. Did I mention shoveling snow?

This afternoon, Paulette came through with some *gorgeous* photos of the ice along the moominbeach. We used to call these things “hummocks” when we were kids and they were so much fun. Big mountains of ice with caves and other interesting formations. Some of the caves were safe to play in, others formed a chute right down to water. They form along the second sandbar. I am not enough of a scientist to form a viable hypothesis about why they form there but I would guess it’s a combination of factors including wind and waves and the geography of the bottom of the bay. They were so much fun though. Not that we were able to get out to the beach much to play on them. Back in those days, nobody had a winterized home on the beach, so the road wasn’t plowed. We had to park at Lewie’s and I’m guessing our parents would snowshoe down to the beach, pulling us on the toboggan behind them. And, as much fun as playing around on the “hummocks” was, I’m sure there was plenty of whining before we got back to Lewie’s parking spot. “I’m cooooolllld. I wanna goooo hooommme.” Y’all know the drill.

THANK YOU, Paulette! For the photos and being our northern connection this weekend. Click here or on the pic for a few more. Paulette makes a cameo appearance in a couple of the pics. As an adult woman probably not too far off from my height (5-5 or 5-6), she gives an idea of the size of these ice formations or hummocks or whatever you want to call them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.