Phenology Site Visit, around first quarter of the second winter moon

I visited my phenology site this morning. Today was the first day I wore my heavy winter coat. There was frost cover and a very light dusting of snow in scattered places, though fortunately very little glare ice, so I didn't need my cleats. This time of year always feels more off to me than others due to climate change ... whether conditions are too warm, or cold without the snow.

The creek now has a cover of ice as well. There's transparent black patches, with the occasional frost marks dotting it like stars, and swirly gray opaque patches, and then solid white patches, and the "maze ice" where it's white but spidered with cracks, and then there are a few patches of open water too. Something about the shape of the ice cover bespeaks unwellness, but I can't put my finger on it, I don't know the language of water/snow/ice well enough.

The air space harboured silence and stillness today. No wind stirred the branches of the trees, or the manitoba maple samaras. No birds made any sounds for most of my walk, and less than half a dozen humans with their dogs passed through. It was a day when you could hear that kind of distant roaring sound in your ears that doesn't seem to come from anywhere, like when you put a shell to your ear and hear the sea, except there's no shell just the stillness. I didn't even seem to hear any traffic noises from far off, though there was one truck idling in the Mill Creek Pool parking lot with no driver in sight.

Crab apples of three different varieties, and honeysuckle berries remain on their respective trees. I did hear one blue jay, and caught sight of one magpie sifting through the leaf layer.