Ice

It is a sign of advancing age that one calculates the probability of breaking one's leg before venturing out in the ice and snow of a morning.  I was not quite as old as Elizabeth Edwards when I had my last child, but old enough that I no longer look at a slide down the miraculously ice covered driveway as a cool personal luge, but as an opportunity for a visit to the emergency room.  Nothing could convince his sisters to go outside and try, so that left me.  I must admit it was fun, but not fun enough to do the return climb back up the driveway more than a dozen times.

After lunch, promised the sisters, we'll go out and slide with you.  Saved by the florist, they were.  Florist?  An old van with balding tires boldly (stupidly?) drove down to the house.  My disbelief that a florist was in our driveway (we don't usually spend money on such a luxury) was suspended long enough to predict that he wouldn't get back up it, but it doesn't seem it occurred to the delivery man.  He just needed a running start.  Uh-huh.  After losing a half inch of rubber from his tires, I told him I'd get the tractor out and plow it, thereby ruining the luge.  William's face fell, but there was no hope for it.  I didn't want the man staying for dinner. Anna took William to sled on the ice crusted snow in the back, but it wasn't the same.

After twenty minutes of pushing ice, the man thanked me and commented, "That looks like fun!"   Perhaps he should get a job on a construction crew, rather than delivering wreaths (what we received from dh's work).

Notes:
Horses were confined to the paddock next to the barn.  I couldn't risk that one might fall and break a leg crossing over to the pasture.

An article claims that school is not where most Americans learn science  I believe it just based on the questions I get from my son.  A friend asked if I had noticed the beautiful rainbow colors as the sun shined through the ice crystals on snow?  Yes, I replied, I have an 8 year old, who asked:

Why does the snow make rainbow colors?  (Because it is made of ice crystals.)
How does it make ice crystals?
How is it that each snow flake is different?  How are snow flakes formed?
How did that water you dropped freeze so quickly on the driveway?
Where are the squirrels?
How can they manage to sleep so long?
How do the birds stay warm?
...and so on.  If I've said it once, I've said it many times, "We'll have to look that up on the Internet."
I don't know what I did before we had it.