Last week we had an ice storm. 

No, that’s overly dramatic and not very accurate.

Last week we had lots of nice beautiful snow.  Then the temperature did un-winter like things and the precipitation that fell was not snow. One morning I woke up to discover that we no longer had snow. Instead we had white ground covering what looked like snow but was actually ice and it was still raining/sleeting/hailing/anything-but-snowing.

It’s like snow, but instead ice with hail frozen to it’s surface between the puddles of water. Notice the dog isn’t even running- it was that slippery.

I headed out to do the chores and while ice was glistening on all the branches making a beautiful sight it took me an unprecedented amount of time to haul my buckets of water across the ice that was masquerading as a snowy yard to the birds. 

I let my birds out and the geese walked down their ramp and tried to walk across the snow-ice to their water pan but their big ol’ feet kept slipping in old ruts and they fell on their faces.  I would have taken a video but they don’t like me laughing at them and if they found out I had done that they would have held a grudge. You don’t want a goose with a grudge.

Instead, I slipped and slid and swore my way over to the brooder house with it’s winter supply of straw and then slipped and slid and swore my way back over to the poultry and spread them a nice layer of straw so they could stand and walk without slipping. Satisfied they’d be fine for the day I started back toward the house doing my now second-nature awkward penguin shuffle with the tiny steps as slipped in and out of every old foot print I ever made, occasionally flapping my arms like a dancing ostrich to keep my balance.

Then I stopped the insanity, looked back at the geese happily walking on their straw and headed back to the brooder house.

You know what they say, What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.

And me and the dogs…

Happy with my straw trails, I shortcuted through the non-slippery house to the front to see what sort of beautiful ice coatings I could find and to check out the driveway.

The ice was indeed beautiful.

The driveway was indeed ice.

But what’s good for the goose…

… it looked odd, it was a bit unorthodox but it worked!