Did you say Minnesota Ice(?)

It's raining, again! It's late December, in Minnesota. Earlier today, most roads in the Twin Cities metro area were covered with ice. At least one of us is wondering if this is becoming a "new normal." The picture below was taken in early January of this year (2019). If you look carefully you'll notice there are only traces of snow on the ground. Today we have more snow, but not by much. The drive has a large puddle. No puddle today but we'll see what tomorrow brings. The entire driveway in the picture is ice covered. Today's conditions match that. If it gets warm enough, and rains enough, the ice may melt. If not, we'll be slipping and sliding until the next snow storm covers the ice with snow. This is not what some of us consider a "fun Winter."

early last January was ice-coated too

Photo by J. Harrington

It's not clear if it will make the national news, but we've already seen videos of folks ice skating on sidewalks in Savage, MN and a paved road in Richmond, WI. (We drove through Richmond yesterday. What a difference a day makes.) One of the better ways to deal with today's weather was once demonstrated by SiSi, the rescue dog lab cross breed. If you have a better approach, feel free to share. After we post today's blog, we're going to get a fresh cup of coffee and curl up to research Springtime's local fly hatches. SiSi gave us that idea when we realized this kind of Winter weather is best for dreaming.

the proper response to an ice storm

Photo by J. Harrington

Ice

By Mary Oliver

My father spent his last winter
Making ice-grips for shoes

Out of strips of inner tube and scrap metal.
(A device which slips over the instep

And holds under the shoe
A section of roughened metal, it allows you to walk

Without fear of falling
Anywhere on the ice or snow.) My father

should not have been doing
All that close work

In the drafty workshop, but as though
he sensed travel at the edge of his mind,

He would not be stopped. My mother
Wore them, and my aunt, and my cousins.

He wrapped and mailed
A dozen pairs to me, in the easy snows

Of Massachusetts, and a dozen
To my sister, in California.

Later we learned how he'd given them away
To the neighbors, an old man

Appearing with cold blue cheeks at every door.
No one refused him,

For plainly the giving was an asking,
A petition to be welcomed and useful-

Or maybe, who knows, the seed of a desire
Not to be sent alone out over the black ice.

Now the house seemed neater: books,
Half-read, set back on the shelves;

Unfinished projects put away.
This spring

Mother writes to me: I am cleaning the workshop
And I have found

So many pairs of the ice-grips,
Cartons and suitcases stuffed full,

More than we can ever use.
What shall I do? And I see myself

Alone in that house with nothing
But darkly gleaming cliffs of ice, the sense

Of distant explosions,
Blindness as I look for my coat-

And I write back: Mother, please
Save everything.

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