Ice

I don’t mind cold. Really. Snow is ok, although an annoyance. What I cannot abide, however, is ice. And today is the iciest day I’ve seen in a coon’s age.

We have been enjoying in a blissfully mild winter and I can’t even say that today is brutal. The temperatures are in the 30’s, which is normally fine, but we are having those rare and peculiar conditions that turn every object into ice sculptures.

Yesterday was a day of rain. Incessant, unrelenting. Nothing driving or particularly harsh, but it never stopped. And, the temperature was sitting contentedly at the borderline between freezing/not freezing. This is bad. At this temperature, water’s density increases a bit and it has a tendency to cling to objects. Then, when the temperature sinks further and the viscous slush turns to solid ice, the fun begins. Overnight, an entire region of drippy wetness turned to frictionless freeze and that is not conditions to be appreciated.

First off, I should have gotten hazard pay just getting to my car. I went out early, as I knew that scraping was going to be the name of the game. I was not prepared for hacking. The car was coated in ¼ - 1/3” thick ice. I have electric locks, so I was not worried about unlocking said vehicle, but opening a door was another matter. Trying to pry open a frozen door, when you can’t actually get a grip on the handle is a sight to behold. At one point, my feet slid forward and I slid underneath the car. Peeking around to see if any of my neighbors witnessed this sad turn of events, I inched back out and made another attempt. It took awhile, but the door finally came free. Yeah! Now, scraping…

Even with the defroster blasting hot air on the windshield, it took 10 minutes of solid struggle to free the windshield from its icy prison. I had barely sufficient energy left to hack a small porthole in either of the front windows. Ok. Now, I have to get the dogs.

Every day, my dogs go to daycare. They romp and play with their friends and this weekend of forced confinement indoors had made them manic with pent-up energy. How was I going to get them down the stairs and to the car over a veritable skating rink of stairs and sidewalk? Carrying them was not an option. I had to maintain my own balance. Leashing them raised the possibility of them trying to imitate sled dogs and pull me down the street. Ingenuity was called for and I was up to the challenge.

I brought their portable kennel downstairs and wrestled each dog into its inescapable clutches. Then, I headed out the back door. My property slopes upwards towards the back of the house. The front door is accessed from a raised porch, but the back is flush with the ground. So, out the back I headed pushing the kennel in front of me with my foot. Exiting the back gate, I gave the kennel a sturdy shove with the boot and down it slid, dogs and all, to the bottom of the alley that separates my house from my neighbors. I still had to navigate the solid sheet of ice, myself, but I didn’t have to worry about the canine influence.

At the bottom, I continued to push the kennel towards the car and removed the dogs once we were alongside the door. I was quite proud of myself. I used the ice against itself and the silly bit of revenge was rewarding. Driving was less of a nightmare than I had predicted as the road crews had actually been earning their salaries by liberally sanding the streets. Getting to the daycare provider’s house, we played doggie bowling. Her driveway was an ice sheet, so she stood by her door and I slid the dogs, one at a time, across the 5 feet or so to her grasp.

By afternoon, some of the ice will be gone, but much will remain. I am currently working on a catapult design to get dogs and myself into my warm, cozy house when we return home. I wonder if shop class has any scrap wood I can borrow…