Weather along Lake Michigan can create some unusual things. A walk along the beach at Tiscornia Park in St. Joseph gave these views.
It is thought they were created this way according to Alan Arbogast from the GEO Department at MSU, "I imagine what happened is that the sand is frozen. Then, we had a big storm roll through a couple weeks ago with strong winds. The wind blew along the beach and blasted out the areas that were a little less frozen. Those things aren't being built up. Everything around the features that are standing up was eroded from it. Those are the things that are left behind."
They will go away, "They do not last very long. The wind completely erodes them or knocks them down. If the temperature goes up above freezing they crumble, and often in the winter, they soon get covered by drifting snow." More here.