RecumBum

Last week the Kansas City area was covered in ice after a day of freezing rain. Most roads were fine, but everything else was coated with about 1/4″ of the stuff. But with sunny skies and warmer temperatures forecast, I knew the ice wouldn’t last long, so I headed over to the Prairie Center for some pictures before the thaw.

It was still mostly cloudy as I arrived, but when the sun came out for good, the grasses and trees quickly began to shed their load. Walking through the woods I was constantly pelted by drops of water and bits of broken ice, and touching a bush or a low-hanging tree limb was like setting off a booby trap, with the ice disintegrating at my touch, and setting off a chain reaction that set the underlying plant springing up in my face.

Overhead, there was a similar situation, as a gust of wind would knock loose a half-melted bit of ice at the top of a tree, and it would cascade down through the canopy, dislodging more ice along the way. I soon learned to cover the camera and tuck my face low until the avalanche of falling ice had subsided.

The prairie offered a similar scene, though the grasses took longer to melt, and their shedding of ice was less dramatic. Still, by the time I made my way along the paths and returned to the parking lot, much of the ice was gone, and the land looked much different. There were fewer sparkles but more color, as the rich browns, yellows, and red of the grasses began to reveal themselves once again.

Here are a few images: