Humptulips County is frost-bound. No form-stealing blankets of snow for us: just intricate rime overlying every living or inert thing, as if each were a piece of furniture adorned with lace doilies or antimacassars. The temperature is near freezing; the sky is cloudless, open to infinity at night and lit by a pale candle by day.
This winter demands my closest attention, for frost, while delicate appearing, is capable of the most amazing intricacies and tough enough to rule the moment. A frost-bitten landscape is one whose canvas reads equally well from a distance or from close up, for each detail is graced from within by even more intricate detail, yet is complete within itself. This is a landscape of still lifes; everywhere I look are individual works of art and the whole is of a kind.
Such moments are fleeting. The strength of frost is in the expansiveness of its lacy network, and its lace disappears quickly with the least application of heat or rain. Unlike snow which melts slowly and clings stubbornly to north facing hillsides and shadowed dells, frost is lithe and quick – here one minute, gone the next. But while it rules, it rules with an iron hand, sapping all living things of flexibility and somehow rendering brittle even the gravel on our drive.
The frost description takes me to a journey for ducks at Squim yesterday.
As the 7:15am ferry, Kennewick departed Keystone for Port Townsend; far to the South the pale pink to rose sky highlighted Mt. Rainier across the flat surface of the Sound. A 30 minute crossing was unremarkable and without a ripple, except a roll or two when making the turn to dock. Thus began the trip to Squim to meet my duck hunting partner for a morning on the fresh water slew, just South of the former location of the 3 Crabs restaurant. It was a slog thru knee deep muck to finally arrive at the hidden blind 1/2 mile from the road. Quiet without a breeze greeted the 28 degree hunters for the evasive mallards.
The trip was a success, with only two unlucky ducks in the bag; however a visit to the Mariners restaurant in Squim yielded the best catch, all the oysters you can eat lunch special!