When we got home from the ski house last week there was a great deal of snow to deal with.It was warm so David got this dug out before we left for the funeral. That night it froze. It has not thawed since that point and now it is all ice. We've left the cars on top of the hill all week and have had 2 more snows and an ice storm to confirm our driveway ans a hazard. It is discouraging to see the neighbors drives clean and ours impassable. It is frustrating to be able only to chip away at the edges. It is alarming to see mom fall an bang her knee on the black ice.
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On Monday morning I took Pax to the vets to be Spayed. She was very sweet and took the strange newness and pain with the good grace exhibited by so many family pets. Dogs are good people.
Megan and Kiernan had their Dental checkup on Wednesday. Megs was crazy and wanted to investigate every dental chair and screaming child. I managed to rein her in.
Kiernan was a pro. Both of them got a congratulatory card stating their admittance to the No Cavity Club.
Yay!
That saves us both heartache and money.
I am so very happy to announce the beginning of tomato season (long may it reign!)
Mom and Kiernan took advantage of one of his many many snow-days to do a little gardening. He needs a lot of encouragement to get his hands dirty. He likes to sort the seed packets and pour the water but he is not a dirt under the fingernails sort of guy.
We brought up the mini-greenhouse and now we wait.
On Friday we took the girls to the bouncy castles for a last hurrah. The bounced their legs to noodles and we all had cheesecake and hung out at the mall.
Kathryn and Erena left on Saturday morning.
They are home safe and sound now in Japan and in their new apartment. They are tired and happy to have real home food and access to their own beds and their cat and their routine.
While we were in Massanutten Kiernan asked me about the salt from the road crews and if it was like table salt.
We have now begun his Science fair project to find out.
We are using table salt and fancy rock crystal salt and brine (the same concentration as the brine Maryland uses on its roads) and de-icing salt from the hardware store.
We are being very careful about weights and impurities.
This was our first go. We have refined the experiment on several counts after running it the first time.
Our results show that table salt is superior to all other salts and that brine is bad on snow and good on ice. We learned that de-icing salt lasts a long time and is cheapest by volume but not really all that good on deep snow. We will use less now on the next run and ditch the food coloring for lanes as it bleeds over. Also we will separate the samples out so that insulation will be less of a factor.
Yay science!
We are planning to make a time-lapse video for his demonstration stand at the science fair and here is our first try using the standard iPhone time-lapse option without apps or filters.
My battery died before you could see much change but its a good proof of concept.
Imagine greater change and nicer snow without blue lines.
It has now been 1 week since Pax was Spayed. Her stitches look pretty good but its very hard for her to get around gingerly with all the ice and deep snow everywhere.
Also she is going stir crazy as her energy returns.
Behold the naked puppy belly!
She is overall a very sweet puppy.
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