Ice, "spaghetti" and corals

It started thawing last night, but ice was, and still is, the most prominent feature of this extraordinary cold period here this winter, lasting more than three weeks now.

Well, not so prominent when it was snowed over again, making it even more dangerous.

Today there was rain also, and if this would freeze again, we’d have more ice.

The ground is still hard frozen. It consists of mainly water anyway around here.

I thought I load up some pictures characteristic of these last weeks.

I wonder what weather is coming next.

solid ice, not snow

small pond, today it was full of water that had collected on the ice

pattern created by sheep in snow on ice

artists that created this work: birds

frost flowers/Eisblumen

more frost flowers

With grass either under snow or frozen the sheep needed what I call their "spaghetti".

I've also made several corals for the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibition that will be on show in the Science Gallery in Dublin from March 20th:

"Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef brings together the fate of an ecosystem on the brink of permanent destruction, an inquiry on the concept of straightness and the feminine craft of crochet. A woolly testimony that celebrates the hyperbolic geometry of coral, Crochet Coral Reef also draws attention to how global warming and pollutants are threatening this fragile ecosystem."

See also The Institute for Figuring

Everyone can make and send corals to the Science Gallery for the exhibition.

Patterns how to crochet them can be found here.

DEADLINE: 20th February 2010 POST TO: Science Gallery, Trinity College, Pearse Street, Dublin 2

Here seen from another perspective:

Participants are asked to also supply some white corals, as well as some made from plastic. The first reflect what happens to coral reefs when they die. They loose all their life and all their colour. The latter represent the plastic rubbish that accumulates in the sea.

The shapes remind me also of those of some lichens:

Oh yes. and I finished my first gene sequence scarf: