Three and Counting

With both water and temperature dropping while I was away for three days, the river changed again,  at least the third freezing cycle since wintry weather began a month or so ago. 

With the lower stream level came clear water and a revelation.  The floodlike intensity over Christmas had swept away the bank of stones thrown up mid-channel a few weeks ago when a thawing ice jam roiled the river.  I could see redistributed stones spread out to the left, to the right and further downstream. The current as it comes from under the bridge had returned to its old route, running to the left of the middle of the river.  The wedge-shaped stony bank was gone and the river  returned entirely to its old flow.

An armada of slushy ice fragments teemed in that current.  They cascaded toward the right bank, amalgamating into larger pieces and slowing down.  With the cold expected in the teens tonight, the now familiar graceful curve at the Ottauquechee's center will narrow tonight, most likely, with more and more ice locking on to the expanding frozen edges.