Ice!

Several years ago I was talking about gardening with visitor from Vermont.  I was giving my latest hint--if you have a problem with armadillos digging up your garden, just lay down some stock fencing on the ground before planting and the wire will discourage them.  "Armadillos?"  he said.  "That's very exotic."

I hadn't thought about them being exotic.  They're pretty common around here.

Ice, on the other hand, is exotic.  Not the tame stuff that comes from the freezer, but real wild outdoor ice.  It's just not something we see very often.  But last Wednesday we had an Ice Day (it was supposed to be a snow day but we were disappointed in that).  Schools were closed, and we got a free day off work.

The rest of the country probably thinks we're wimps.  Someone (from Colorado) sent a friend a cartoon of a glass cubes of ice tipped over on a sidewalk and a caption of "Oh Not!!  Close the Schools!"  They're probably right--after all, it was 30 degrees above zero.  But it was raining ice.  Yes, technically I know that it's called "sleet."  But in my mind, sleet also has snow involved, and I feel it should have wind.  This was just solid rain.  Raindrops on the bushes that didn't fall off, even if you shook them.  Rain that landed and didn't run off or soak in--just whitely lay there. If you walked outside, the raindrops bounced off of you instead of getting you wet.   Fascinating.

It was the sound effect that enchanted me.  A sort of crinkly sound, like being in a huge bowl of Rice Crispies.

 
 
 

So yeah--we were wimps.  Stayed home and lit the fire.  It was fun to look at the ice, but I was glad I didn't have to drive on it.  And it was gone before the novelty wore off (like by the next day).  Today we were back to normal--working in the garden in our T-shirts.

For a day, we liked the ice.  It was exotic.

Ice drops on bamboo

 

 

 

 

Grumpy puffed-u[ peacocks were not intrigued by the ice