Winter (& more blabbering)

Damn groundhog.
It's snowing.
Again.
And it's supposed to continue.


Did you know that 13% of Americans admit to occasionally operating power tools while drinking?
I didn't either, but that little tidbit was tacked onto the end of a news report this morning.
Why?
I have no idea.
I admit to drinking beer and mowing grass.

Cold

Cold is relative.
This morning it is a relatively balmy 25F degrees.
Last week I would have told you that 25 is cold, but after the cold snap this weekend, it really doesn't feel so bad (except when my glove fingers freeze to the shovel handle after I've pulled my hands into fists to keep them warm enough to clean the walkways and sidewalks).
Friday morning our thermometer at home said -2. Here in town it was zero. I think it made it up to about 10 degrees.
Saturday morning it was -11 at home and -4 here in town. That is cold.
Unless you live in Minnesota, then even those temperatures could feel relatively balmy.
Really.
I remember reading a book when I was a child that said if you spit at 40 below, it will freeze before it hits the ground. I never thought I'd put myself in a situation to see if that were true.
And then I grew up and moved to Minnesota.
Yep. It's true. You can hear it crackle as it freezes.
However, at that temperature, any exposed skin is not safe. Nothing is safe.
It was so cold, propane gelled in the tank. If it stayed that cold and you had to have the propane to keep the furnace going, you'd have to shovel red hot coals underneath the tank to warm it enough to be usable. Fortunately, we kept our coals in the wood burners (yes, plural - we had 2 of them) and kept feeding them. We went through about 7 cords of wood in a winter. 7 cords of good wood and we were still wearing sweaters in the house.
At that time, PC worked at the sawmill in our little community - about 3 miles from the house. The cold didn't stop them much. If it were 20 below or warmer (who would've thought you'd ever see '20 below' and 'warmer' in the same sentence?), the sawmill ran. At -21, the old man would grunt and the sawmill would stay idle.
Driving on the lake was a new thing for me, too. We lived about 2 miles north of Mille Lacs Lake. It is not a small lake. In fact, I believe it's one of the larger lakes in a state known for its lakes. Not long before Christmas, little icehouses would start appearing far out from shore. The little sheds on skis that sit along the water's edge all summer long were just waiting for the freeze. Once the ice was thick enough - about 3 feet- it was safe for a full size vehicle to drive on. The icehouses are hooked up like trailers and pulled out onto the lake. Whole little communities pop-up. Roads are plowed and the little shacks become homes away from home - one way to battle cabin fever.
In the floors of these little shacks (usually with a plywood bunk or two, a small heater, and a chair) are trapdoors. You pull the handle and it opens up to reveal the surface of the lake about 6 inches below floor level. You use an ice auger to drill a 6" hole. When the ice thickens, you use an auger extension (I am not making this up) to reach the water.
The fishing is good some days, not so good others: like any other fishing, I guess. (If you don't catch anything, you can hook up your house to your truck and move.) The walleye tastes wonderful, but if you're lucky, you catch such a big one you can't pull it in (I'm not sure that's lucky). And they have big, sharp teeth. Lots of them.
Living up there, I certainly saw things you'd never see around here.
That's okay with me.
If I ever feel the need to keep the ice open around my fishing hole, I know where to go.

It worked; I feel warmer already :).

Easter Snow

My grandmother always said there had to be an Easter snow, either on Easter or close to it. It rained hard yesterday afternoon and switched over to snow about the time it got dark.
I woke up to this:




Not much snow, just a dusting. And look how beautiful the sky is!


It's only about 50 degrees out now, but the sky has been this unbelievable blue all day; I'm going out for a walk now.

The Treadmill Phenomenon

Today is a SNOW DAY. The kids are ecstatic (and ecstatically fighting) and it's still snowing. Hard.

If you're a parent, you are aware of the Telephone Phenomenon. And for those without children: It's when you get on the telephone and everyone in the house all of a sudden needs something.

I had forgotten, until today, that this attention-hoarding behavior also applies to the treadmill.

Today's Treadmill Phenomenon movie: Child#2 (Screech) thumps down the stairs from her room and across the floor above my head. She thumps down the basement stairs and begins to scream, "Mom! Mom!" While she is in the process of telling me her room is flooded, Child#3 (Dozer) thumps across my head in hot pursuit. He doesn't even wait until he's downstairs before he's screaming, "I did not! I did not!"

At about this time, two smaller elfin children clop down the stairs carrying between them what is left of an air rocket launcher. (J--- and L---. These two children are neighbors. They are very small and quiet compared to my screaming heathens. They are welcome here at anytime, mainly because they give me hope of a quieter, calmer, saner universe.) There is a long clear tube with a round accordion type bellows that is supposed to be stepped on in order to push air through the tube and into the rocket launching pad which is a flat plastic platform with a hollow, rigid plastic tube that points straight up into the air. A styrofoam rocket sits on top of this and can be launched into the air about 50 feet if a child jumps onto the accordion. Or at least it would launch if the dog hadn't eaten the rocket last week.

I am just now feeling nice and warm and moving easily. I'm watching the little stick man on the treadmill display run around the imaginary track at an amazing speed (alright, amazing might be stretching the truth a little bit). Over top of two screaming, arguing children I hear an elephant coming down the stairs and the house shakes (I'm not kidding about the house shaking). Child#1 (Grunt) stumble/thump/bang/wallop/whacks his way into the basement in the teenage sprawling way he has of taking over the entire house and comes to stand behind the four younger children. His hands are shoved in his pockets and he looks bored. (How the hell can you look bored when the decibel level is enough to break eardrums and the small people are jumping around like a herd of kangaroos?)

"Mom, can I go over to S---'s house?" Grunt asks. He can't be serious, can he? Dozer now has hold of the rocket launcher by the hose and begins to whip it around. The children scatter and Grunt ducks. Screech moves in closer to shove a wet monkey (evidence) in Grunt's face and he pushes her back. She stumbles and falls against J--- and L--- and tumbles these two small children like bowling pins. More screeching ensues.

I push the red 'Stop' button.

I calmly inform everyone that I am in the middle of my workout and they cannot -must not- interrupt me.

"Go clean it up," I say to the girls.

"Leave that here," I say to the rocket launcher.

"What are you going to do at S---'s?" I ask Grunt who towers above the younger children and parts them like the Red Sea as they scuttle back towards the stairs.

"Sled," is the one word answer. It sounds rather like a 'grunt.'

I push the green button and begin to walk, slowly moving back up to speed.

"Wait until I'm done and we'll talk about it," I answer. He grunts in reply and shuffles away.

*** Okay- here's the reality: 1. I might not have been quite as calm as this account makes me appear to be and 2. the last time Grunt went sledding over at S---'s house (February 2007), he broke his arm.

Really, I was not calm at all. At all. I yelled something like, "Why is it that as soon as I get on the treadmill everyone needs something?" And I yelled the "Go clean it up" line, too. "Leave that here" was somewhat quieter, but they were already scuttling by that time.

"Wait until I'm done..." was spoken in a quiet, calm voice. And he didn't argue (write that on the calendar).

Last year, in February, Grunt asked me to take him over to S---'s to go sledding. He and all his friends are HUGE. Nearly full-grown, but they still play like a rolling, tumbling pack of puppies. In other words: They are Dangerous. So, I agreed to drive him over there, but I requested that he find his wrist protectors to wear underneath his gloves. I believe his response was something like, "That's stupid. Nobody has to wear wrist protection for sledding. That's stupid. What? Do you think I'm gonna break my arm? That's stupid. I'm not gonna break my arm. What? I could slip and fall just walking out the back door. Do you think I should wear them all the time? That's stupid."

Note the abundance of, "That's stupid." The previous winter he'd gone snowboarding in Colorado and broke his arm on his first run. He was not wearing wrist protection.

So, last winter, I agreed to let him go if he had his wrist protection on. Assuring me that it was very stupid, I dropped him off and came back home (it's about two miles over there). Ten minutes (yes, just ten minutes) after I got back, the phone rang. It was Grunt telling me that he hurt his arm and it was bad enough that I should come and get him.

How stupid am I?