My Pretzel Boy

First of all, let me just say I post this with permission of my Pretzel Boy.  As a matter of fact, I specifically asked him if I could put this in my blog and his response was, "Sure mom, I don't care what people think of me."  Please note no children were harmed in the photographing of this blog post.

Since he was a baby, his flexibility was amazing.  I could twist this child any which way.  I could put his feet behind his head and practically fold him in half.  This would be considered odd because his father, on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being highly flexible), would range somewhere between a 2 and 3 while I used to be around an 8...emphasis on used to be!

It seems he has not lost that flexing ability at all in the last 13 years...

 He is scooting himself with his feet behind his head.  Now this may make some squeamish,  let me inform you that while he may not sit exactly like this all the time, he does sit with a foot routinely wrapped around his body.  When just sitting and relaxing in the chair watching TV, he does have a habit of contorting his body in unnatural poses but it was not until recently that we discovered this talent...

 It's just not right...

If You Give Teenage Boys Snow...

If you give teenage boys some snow, they'll want to go play in it.  And by play, I mean torture each other by doing everything in their power to ram, throw and smush snow onto their brother's skin.  When The Great Storm of 2010 came 2 weeks ago, it was way too cold to go play in it.  The wind chill was down to negative 17 on some days.  But we had a pretty mild day where we could go outside for more than 30 seconds without feeling like our noses and fingers were going to burn and fall off.

 So we thought we'd get a little play time in before the snow melted.  As you can see, the torture begins.

 Can I just say there is actually very little time in our household currently where a teenage boy is not torturing another teenage boy?  I have 3.  There is very little peace here right now.

 The snow was very powdery and had melted a bit the day before.  That night we had a hard freeze so there were layers of compacted, dry, powdery snow.  It sort of exploded into a powder when thrown.  I have to admit, it was kinda cool...

 Note the two on the right.  Okay...now note the one on the left...umhmmm. I give him props for trying.  A quick, "NO" did the trick and he found another target quickly...

 Unfortunately they were too engrossed with each other to notice him coming...

 Uh Oh!!!  Man down!!!  Man down!!!  Please understand this is a daily endeavor in my home.  I have learned not to panic and to remain calm unless there is blood or a body part bending in a manner in which it shouldn't.

 This is my baby.  Can you see that there is snow inside his hood?  Can I just say he is not happy!!! That is not a smile folks. After I got him up and dusted off, he decided he had enough and went to go thaw in the shower.  Now don't you worry...he's just fine.

 Here's Ryan making a snow angel.  Um...Ryan?  I think you're supposed to be on your other side.  Might work better...

 Okay...try that.  We are from South Texas.  We get no snow.  We are learning...

 TaDahhhhh!!!  A snow angel.

 Now it is big brother's turn.  By this time, we'd been out for about 15 minutes.  We were having a good time but my feet were starting to burn and it was cold!!!  So I made us all go inside. I know...I'm such a buzz kill man!

 I guess they were feeling a little guilty about torturing the little brother so Ryan helps his brother up in a rare moment.

 So this is it for the snow!  It melted in the next two days and we soon discovered that the beauty of snow is but a moment compared to the gray, dirty, slushy, icky, mess of melting snow.  I'm still cleaning my floors...and car...and laundry...

But for a moment, it was beautiful!

Winter Confession

I know you've been losing sleep over the whole frozen water tank issue.  So lest you toss and turn another night thinking about my poor boys having to go break ice and very nearly freeze to their deaths, well, worry no more!

You rememer this?



 Do you see that device in there on the bottom right part of the tank? That's a neat little tool. It's supposed to keep the water from freezing.  The trick is to plug it in without electrocuting yourself or the horse.  You have to sort of hide the cords so she doesn't try to bite through the cord or pull the cord with her hoof.  You know...tricky things like that.

 The other tricky part is making sure you have enough juice to run the hot wired fence so the horse doesn't try to run free and still have enough to keep the water from freezing.  Also, now- I'm not an expert or anything-but not setting it up until the day after the coldest night in history may not be the best strategy.  Maybe you want to have it installed and working on the day of the coldest night in history...just sayin'.

 But no worries!  We...er...I mean, he as in Brandon, had it all set up in no time. Girlfriend got plenty to eat and plenty to drink...


Dang!  Girlfriend's looking a little shaggy.  Girlfriend needs a shave.  I know how she feels...I tend to shave less in the winter too when I know my legs are going to be covered most of the time.  What???  TMI??  Puhleeeez!!!  Don't tell me you keep up with your summer shaving routine throughout the winter!!  Just keepin' it real!

Got What I Asked For!

If you haven't noticed by now, all winter I've been griping and complaining about how we haven't had any snow or real winter-like conditions.  I moved 8 hours north and have pretty much experienced the same weather we had in The Big City...blah, blah, blah.

Well..I finally got what I asked for. On the first day of February, a Winter Storm rolled in and put the whole state in a State of Emergency!  We, being in the southwest part of the state, didn't get nearly as slammed as the central and northwest part of the state...but it was arctic, windy and the windchill was negative 17 degrees F for a time.  In case you're from the southern part of the U.S....that's really frickin' cold!!!

So, the media of course was going crazy!!!  People went out shopping a couple of days before it was coming and emptied the shelves of the local stores for supplies. After all, last year, some people were without power for three weeks!!!  We were also pretty sure we would have a Snow Day so I prepared to make some meals and take advantage of having the day at home with my family.  But just in case, I got up early, jumped in the shower and checked the news for school closings.  Everyone was warned to stay off the roads and to not travel unless absolutely necessary!  Yay!  Snow Day! 

So I checked outside to see what the whole fuss was about anyway...

This was my front door at 6:30 am.  The wind had blown the snow so hard it was piled behind the screen door in between my front door!  I could feel and hear the wind blowing through my door!  Brrr!!

Now this is my back door.  I have to admit that the weekend before we got this freezing blast, the weather was a beautiful, spring-like 65 degrees!  I pulled the glass down on the screen door and opened up the house.  I also forgot to close the glass on the screen door and the snow just came right in!

It's not like we got feet and feet of snow.  I think we actually only ended up with maybe 2 inches.  The problem was the wind was blowing so hard, it caused drifts that were at least 12 inches deep.  Anyone trying to drive would be fine (if you could even tell where the roads were) and all the sudden, you'd be front deep in a snow drift, not going anywhere for a while unless you happen to be carrying a shovel in your car.

We have a garage that is actually a carport but it's more like a garage without doors.  This picture shows how hard the wind blew the snow.  This is the back of our garage with two large vehicles in front and everything in my garage was covered in snow!

It just looks cold and dreary doesn't it?  We were a little disappointed that the first time we get snow, it was really too dang cold to go play in it.  Seriously, you couldn't be outside for more than a few minutes before your fingers and face started to burn.

But we had to at least go feel it for a bit.  Here are my two youngest trying to make snowballs.  The snow was very dry and powdery but they finally made one!

Yay! Even though it was 9 degrees with a windchill of negative 17 there were still outside chores to do.  The poor horse needs to eat and stay warm!

Doesn't she look cold?  Being the wonderful mother I am, I sent my children out with the camera to take pictures for me so I wouldn't freeze.  Well...they had to be out there anyway breaking up the ice in the water tank (which takes more than one person) and make sure she has plenty to eat and plenty of hay.  I'm old and it was really cold! Don't judge me!

Buttercup was really cold.  She had snow all over her.  Good thing she has a winter coat.  It's really warm and shaggy.  We also give her more food than usual so she can eat plenty and burn more calories to stay warm.

The water presents another problem...

Shovels and crowbars usually do the trick with a little elbow grease.  At one point, my Ryan comes traipsing in covered in slushy, cold clothes and half frozen.  I think he was using the shovel to pull some of the ice chunks out of the water and well...sorta half fell in.  I think!!!  Remember I wasn't out there.  So he comes in half froze and after I asked him "Oh My Gosh!!!  What happened to you?"   And he told me between chattering teeth that he fell into the water tank trying to grab a huge piece of ice, I looked for my camera.  I know!  So I didn't take a picture of my half froze boy because I had to get him out of those clothes and into the bath...also, another child had my camera outside...heh.

Cutting up the ice without cutting through the tank is tricky.  Plus you have to get as much ice as you can out so it doesn't freeze deeper and harder the next time...which is does.  This is probably the hardest and worst job in the winter when you have animals. 

Here's my snow dog Buzz.  He's mostly Husky so he LOVES the snow.  And he likes to help the boys with the horse.  I think it makes him feel important.  He also hasn't totally figured out that he's a dog...

That afternoon the wind finally died down a little.  After that it didn't feel as cold, even though the temperature was like 5 degrees. 

It ended up being a pretty fun day.  We got to try alot of things we never have like ice cream snow.  The kids would go out in spurts to play in the snow as much as they could handle and we had a yummy beef stew for dinner and lots of hot chocolate. 

And oh yeah.  I ended up with about 20 loads of laundry! When it's this cold, you have to dress in layers.  And times that by 3...and when you come in, the clothes are wet so the next time you go out, you need clean, dry layers...and times that by 3...

So for a total of 30 minutes throughout the day playing plus another 30 minutes of chores, I spent the next 5 days trying to catch up with laundry.  Not kidding!  And that does not include cleaning the dirty wet floors, and kitchen clean up of having every member of the family home eating all day long!!!  If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go switch the clothes out and dry my tears...

Do Animals Like Snow?

Well we have finally had a cold spell. Actually, I would say it was more than a cold spell...it was crazy Arctic! Lows are 5 degrees and highs in the teens? Where the heck am I anyway?

So I guess I got my wish and have to quit my gripping. We got snow!!!! In the city, we got snow back in 1985 or something...I was a kid so I don't really remember when. Nothing really since then. So this was so fun! The best part was we had to stay home...yep! An actual...SNOW DAY!!! The bad part was the wind was blowing so hard we couldn't get out and enjoy it without our noses and fingers feeling like they were going to drop off our bodies the moment we stepped outside. That wind...she was angry!

So we have this dog. His name is Buzz. He's part Husky and he LOVES the snow. We almost can't get him inside without luring him with treats and food. His old self gets to feeling like a kid again. He jumps, runs, skips, hops, plays and is just down right frisky!

Sorry about that blob on the right of the picture. I sent my kids out to take pictures and Trey fell and got my camera all messed up. So that would be snow...

So anyway, this is a picture of a dog who thinks he's in Heaven! I would say he likes snow.

Here's our gimpy cat Rex. This would be the first time he ever experienced snow. He was a little slow going out and when he ran back in...(snicker) his paws were wet, (heeheeehaha) and he slipped on the floor (bahahahawww) and went a little panicky! So humiliating. Now he sits at the door and whines to go out. I think he likes snow.

Can you see that? Doesn't it look cold? Remember when I said I sent my kids out with the camera? I ain't no fool man!!! It was stinkin' COLD outside. It was like 9 degrees with a wind chill of negative 17!!!! Don't judge me!!! They had to go feed her and break up the ice for her water anyway...and kids are more resilient than grown ups too. They're fine! It builds character.

Here's poor Buttercup with snow stuck to her back. Poor horsey! Doesn't she look cold? Well she's grown this really thick fur underneath her topcoat and she looks quite shaggy actually! I've been noticing that her hair is very thick! And we've been feeding her alot more. We've actually caught her jumping, bucking and kicking while running around and playing. I think she likes the snow!

What about these animals?? Don't try to argue with me. Teenage boys are animals. They make funny noises when they sleep, they smell terrible and they eat like nothing I've ever seen in my life!! As cold as it was, they put in a good effort in trying to play. Ryan is trying to show Trey how to make a snowball. The snow was very powdery so it was hard. They spent a good 20 minutes or more out there having a good time before my little snowmen came inside to thaw.

These animals like the snow!