Ice Monsters

It had been a wonderful Christmas.  I had asked Santa for snow and he delivered!  We had 11 inches before Christmas and a couple more after.  The temperatures were hiding in the below freezing range.  It was cold.

Nicole had extended her Christmas visit until after New Years.  We headed into town to raid the grocery store.  On the way we passed my Uncle's house.

"Did you see that strange icicle on Uncle's house?" Nicole inquired as we zoomed down the road.

I had not and thought nothing of it.  Nicole was from California.  She had lived the majority of her life in  warm weather climates.  It was time for her to see what real icicles looked like.

We were zipping down the road home when Nicole exclaimed, "Mom!  Look at the huge icicle on Uncle's house."

I glanced the the left.  I gasped.  I hit the brakes-hard.

Did I mention the temperatures were below zero?  One should probably not be zooming and zipping down the roads at that temperature and then slam on the brakes.  Luckily I managed to keep us out of the ditch and away from the mail box.

It was the icicle.  Well, it wasn't really an icicle.  I was correct in saying Nicole did not know what a real icicle was.  I had never seen anything like it in my 55 years of being.  These were ice monsters!

Rising up from the north side of his house were about fifty ice monsters.  They were all shapes and sizes.  Some short.  Some over six feet tall.  Some were slender.  Others were chubby little pigs.  There were even baby ones dripping off the eaves.

Cautiously I pulled into the driveway.  Nicole jumped out and headed up the hill.

"Stop!  Now!"  I screamed.  "They might be related Medusa and turn you into a permanent ice sculpture."

Nicole rolled her eyes and kept going.  At times she can still be a teenager.

What to do?  Watch and see if she is turned into ice art and go for help?  Or scoot along after her and protect her with my powerful biceps?

Motherly instinct kicked in.  I trotted along beside her to conquer the invading ice ogres.

Nearing the top of the hill we began to hear a faint hissing.  "Nicole, they sound like opossums.  Do you think they are large opossums from the Arctic?"

Again I was rewarded with an eye roll.

"Mom.  Look.  There is a mist spraying behind that wall of ice."

Sure enough.  A mist shot eight feet into the air.  It looked like a water mist at the San Diego Zoo trying to cool everyone off.  Except it was 20 degrees outside.

These were not ice monsters after all.  They were harmless bushes and trees that had been frozen into beautiful, intimidating pieces of ice art.

A phone call later and the mist from a garden hose was gone.

A month has now passed.  It's still cold.  The ice monsters are still guarding my Uncle's house.  They are as beautiful now as they were in December.  I am considering making my own ice art.  I could turn the hose on some bushes and trees.  Let them freeze good and hard for several days.  Then I could go out with my chain saw and some picks.  I will not have ice monsters guarding my house.  I will turn my guards into ice cats!



 

Lumpy Pumpkins

Most of my growing up years were in Texas.  People love to hunt there.  Their trucks are armed with gun racks positioned and loaded in the rear widow.  Hunters don their camouflage and head to their deer lease.  There they sit in a stilted camouflaged blind for hours waiting for a deer to pass their way.  I moved to Iowa and the hunting was a bit different.

It was hunting season.  My usually quiet gravel road was buzzing with pickups.  They raced up and down the road.  Some stopped by my property.  The excited hunters hopped out and stood peering towards the mile away river.  They stood as still as a cactus in the desert.  Could the deer around the river actually see their movement so far away?  Fifteen or twenty minutes later, the cactus became  men again.  Back in their trucks they rushed to another deer look-out point.

Through out the day I could hear "bam-bam-bam" as gun shots rang around the country side.  I wondered where the hunters were.  I wondered where the deer were hiding?  A trip to town answered one of those questions.

I was tootling around the back roads when a curious sight assaulted my eyes.  A field was filled with what appeared to be lumpy gigantic pumpkins.  It was way past pumpkin harvest.  So what were these alien shapes?

A closer inspection reveled the lumpy sights to be men.  Hunter type of men.*  They were wearing bright orange vests and loud orange beanies perched on their heads.

I understand there are not deer leases in Iowa.  Hunters must prowl around different fields.  They need to be readily seen.  Not to be mistaken for prey.  I see the need to wear neon blinding orange.  What I do not understand is the camouflage clothing under the bright orange.

Picture this in your mind:  A sunrise wake-up call.  The hunter jumps out of his warm bed.  He quickly pulls on his camo pants and shirt.  Dirt brown boots are tied over the feet.  This hunter is ready to be disguised in the unsuspecting deer's habitat.  Then the hunter snaps on his vest of luminous orange and tops it off with a carrot colored beanie.  He can then be spotted for miles by any one or any thing.

So, why wear the camouflage?

Why not put on comfy jeans and a flannel shirt?  Why not work pants and a sweat shirt?  Heck even your Sunday best.  What does it matter what you wear under your pumpkin suit?

Then I began to wonder.  Are deer color blind?  Perhaps they can not see the orange vests as humans do.

I little research and the answer was "yes".  Deer are color blind.  So once again I asked myself-if deer can't see color-Why the camouflage?!

Still meandering around the country roads, my mind was busy speculating.  When I drive past these bright orange hunters scattered around the field and stream waiting for deer, I could help the situation.  I could lay on my horn and holler through my megaphone-"Hide Deer-Hide!  It's an invasion of lumpy pumpkins!"

I did not say who I was going to help.





* I do not mean to be sexist, but I have never seen a female hunter in my part of Iowa.  Even though I know my Texas nieces can take down a prey with one shot.  Eat your heart out boys!