The Cold Is Getting To Me...

It's been kinda cold outside for the past few days - especially the last two. Snow is blowing around, temps around zero, wind chills -15°, and drifts across the driveway (I had fun "exploding" one this morning with the pickup...).

Cold air makes the mind.....

...oh yeah, wander...

The first thing I had to do this morning was a little Science experiment from way back in my grade school days at the one-room country schoolhouse. This was back before kids (and parents) complained about it being too cold or too hot to attend school. If it was hot, you opened the windows, if it was cold, you stood by the heater to get warm -


- and did "cold weather experiments".

One of the experiments we did was to boil water on the heat stove (OOOOH, exciting...), then go outside and toss it in the air (such daredevils, we). It might not SOUND like fun but it was kinda neat to see what happened.

First of all, the air temperature has to be below 0°F to make everything work properly. Second, the water has to be BOILING. Things will WORK if these two things aren't EXACT, but they work BETTER if they are.

Since this morning was about -2°, I decided to re-do the experiment. It's simple, just run outside with the boiling water, and throw it into the air. I will INSTANTLY turn to "snow" and fall back to earth.

I know, my wife was summarily impressed, too....

Hey, it's winter, it's cold, and I have to do SOMETHING to keep my insanity.

While doing chores this morning, I came across a couple things that needed simple words to describe them, but none really existed. The first one developed when I could not move a gate because one of the Bovine had decided to leave a "Poocano" in the way last night.

For those of you who don't know what a "Poocano" is, here goes:

Poocano - noun - only takes place in cold weather, at or below 0°F. Occurs when a member of the Bovine species relieves themselves while standing in one spot. This effect in turn, causes a cone to form with "steam" raising out of the top. Appears to be a miniature volcano.

This leads to the formation of another phenomenon - the Turdburg.

Turdburg - noun - what happens when a Poocano becomes extinct (should that be "exSTINKED"...?). Caused by sub-zero temperatures. This results in a structure harder than steel, that is usually frozen to the ground - and to an adjoining gate. The bane of bovine handlers in cold climates the world over.

Another one I've seen this winter -

Catcicle - noun - frozen cat. Usually caused by said cat being too stupid to burrow into hay during freezing weather. Results in a nifty centerpiece or doorstop, but only if kept frozen.

Other variations include: Cowcicle, Goatcicle, Horsecicle, etc, etc - none of which you want to see - and they DO NOT make good doorstops...

Another thing I've learned this winter - even below 0°F, good, pure, liquid molasses does not freeze. I've been calling it "Molastoscity", and it sure comes in handy. I've also found that the dry molasses freezes into an unusable, rock-hard brick at about 25°.

One of these days, spring will arrive, and I won't have to worry about any of these things.

Until NEXT winter...