Mysterious Happening

We have an old procelain bowl on the deck that is usually naturally filled with rain water. The dog, cats and sometimes birds love to drink from it. And who knows, at night maybe the racoon and possum who frequent the bowl of catfood left for an old warrior of a cat, come and drink too. Better tasting than tap water I guess.

The temperature was in the 50's the night before this picture was taken on Christmas day. It was rainy and the temperature slowly dropped overnight to about 30 F degrees. Where did this spear of ice come from? The nearby railings of the deck were devoid of ice and the bowl had just a skim of ice on the surface. Why is it protruding rather than falling, becoming part of the surface of ice in the bowl? Strange happenings indeed.