Or hockey rink if you prefer. We are having crystal days with temps in the twenties or thirties and shining nights near zero. Nice sugar weather and the days are really pretty.
However, the result is that in the day time no matter how much sand is spread, all the drives and walkways are like shining sheets of glass. And all the sand is sucked under by the melting, presenting a fresh ice world each morning.....
I can remember being a kid and skating on such stuff. Loving it. Flying. Crashing down on it and not caring, and getting up and doing it again. We skated EVERYWHERE when we were kids. If there was a six-inch patch of ice we were all over it.
I mean we had wild hockey matches on the thin little threads of ice between the hummocks of grass and corn stubble in the field next to our parents' house. If you came to a grass tuft you just jumped it. I don't remember it hurting except the time I froze my toes ...just a little, but enough to hurt for days and days.....skating up at Caroga Lake. Having too much fun to notice until it was too late.
Where did that marvelous sense of balance go? Now I can't WALK to the barn on the ice...let alone skate (and the toes I froze back in the day are not happy little campers in this weather either.)
Yesterday I got as far as the back of the stock trailer and just waited. I couldn't even hold one foot still on the stuff....I was afraid I would slide right off the hill.
The wait was fruitful as it happens, as the boss grabbed the skid steer as soon as he got to the barn and scooped up some sand and did the drive between house and barn.
Still made for a slow walk, but at least I could walk. Beck was not so lucky. She was feeding her dog and took a terrible header. Being a farm kid she went to her off-farm job anyhow, but she is black and blue. Nasty stuff ice.
However, when I took feed to the peacocks yesterday, a mix of cat and dog food, corn and sunflower seeds with a nice chopped apple for topping, I waited for a few minutes over by the outside door. The hen began to give those guttural little clucks they have, then very, very cautiously hopped off the roost and began to eat the corn.
I was delighted.
My walk from the barn/garage to the house was long and circuitious last night, as I stepped from Clear Patch to Clear Patch.
ReplyDeleteReminded me of the quote that "every mile is two in winter."
Get some lite chains, like calving chains, and wrap and hook around your feet. Someone told me that when we had all the ice. sounds like a plan.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere yesterday that as we get older we lose some of that youthful ability to balance on all kinds of surfaces. I believe they were saying that we rain our muscles and inner being to be in a rut. We can, however, train our selves out of it by doing more "silly" stuff like balancing on a log as we walk or--if you're a little less adventurous--on a 2 x 4, the curb, or those grass hummocks you mentioned. It takes time but it makes you able to walk more confidently on ice or on uneven terrain.
ReplyDeleteIf immediacy is important, get yourself a pair of Trax. (I think that's what they are called.) They're metal chains/cleats for your feet that just slip over your regular boots/shoes and can be donned and removed very easily.
The ice certainly presents a challenge. Stay safe!
ReplyDeleteAh yes! The fearlessness and flexible bones of youth! We could slip on the ice or fall off a horse, and never a bone was broken. Yaktrax were made for us oldsters, I agree. But sometimes when I come upon a slick patch, I find that running and sliding like a kid still gets me across. And it's fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you waited...us older folks just don't recover like young'ns do.
ReplyDeleteLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
I remember skating everywhere as a kid too and you couldn't knock us down either. They hockey club in town hated playing us cause we were so use to skating on big cracks and jumping over the odd frozen bush we were unstoppable. Not anymore for this chick either, I have a calving chain rig I buckle on my boots when it's icy.
ReplyDeleteI read you can screw screws into your boots for impromptu ice shoes. I tried it on my sneakers and it worked really well.
ReplyDeleteI'd hop off my perch too for a tasty treat like that!
ReplyDelete;-D
Your tales of ice just scare me to immobility.
Geeze I'm sorry about Becka. She took a header?
Did she hit her head? Dang ;0(
My postman wears these cleats called Yaktrax.
Fred I'll send Alan home with a present for ya this weekend.We have ice grabbers that work great send you some.
ReplyDeleteLove ya
sibenes????
June, great quote! I had never heard it, but it sure is true. It takes me half an hour to do the five minute job of feeding the peacocks and chickens
ReplyDeleteJB, I am hoping to do something along those lines.
joated, I have read that too and it does seem to be true for me. I need to do something, the ice is awful this year
CTG, thanks!
WW, you have my utmost respect! lol, I still run (although pretty much only when chasing cows) but sliding not so much.
Linda, the ice is like iron when it hits thirty-five in the day time and goes below zero at night!
Linda, we skated on everything! We skated down my folks' steep driveway and caught ourselves on the house at the bottom. would love to see a pic of your arrangement of chains.
Cathy, she hit about everything but her head. Lots of aches and pains and bruises. She is a hurrier and not a good judge of footing, alas.
Charlie, thank you and welcome to Northview! I am going to have to try something along those lines.
Mappy, as always, you are the best.