New Englanders raise their wipers in surrender when a snowstorm is forecast.
If you’re going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.
-Karin Gillespie
Walking in winter can be, and often is… difficult. Not only is it a lot of work to tramp through deep snow, small accumulations can turn into sheets of ice that are hazardous.
Several days ago, a couple of inches of snow fell. Just enough so the kids where I live can go sliding down the small hills using various contrivances. This pushes snow downhill and packs it in low areas at the bottom where it’s compacted further by people walking on it. The caretakers have small electric vehicles they use to drive around off-road and that packs it down even harder. Then, along comes a warming spell, followed by a cold snap, and that solid bit of hardpack turns into half to quarter-inch sheets of glassy ice. Ice that I have learned not to try to cross, even with gentle baby steps and ice cleats.
In the past, I’ve done more than one ass-over-tea kettle flying butt and back flop. I’ve not been seriously hurt and that is a concern at my age. Added to that, I have, by necessity, adopted a policy of never going to ground without a good plan as to how I’m going to get back up. These unintended attempts at aerobatics and off-field landings violate that policy. You see, when you’re older, you lose strength in muscles you don’t use. There are all kinds of small muscles (I’ve learned by experience) that help you get out of contorted positions that put your larger muscles at a mechanical disadvantage. Since I (more or less) intentionally keep myself (as a rule) from being pretzelated, those muscles are not often used. So, when I need them (like when I’m splayed on my back on a sheet of ice with a zero coefficient of friction), I have to be very creative and think hard about how the hell I’m going to get myself out of my predicament and back on my feet. Meanwhile, I’m getting wet and cold and (not unusually) a little muddy. I don’t like it.
Even Waldo goes around the stuff. When he doesn’t, he’s prone to do a four-legged river dance in a mad scramble to get off it. Thank God he doesn’t choose to poop on the ice. Although it might be entertaining to watch him try, with all four legs flailing about trying to get a good enough purchase to squat. You see, I am obligated morally, and, by contract with the community where I live, required to reposit what he deposits. Anywhere he deposits. I shudder at the thought of having to bend over and pick up what Waldo leaves behind while doing my own version of a chicken trying to take flight. I could very well turn brown from more than just mud.
Fortunately, the ice isn’t everywhere. It has a tendency to accumulated in low places where the melting snow can accumulate and then freeze before it can be absorbed into the ground. Most of the time, Waldo and I can find a way around these hazards. Sometimes, I have to bend low to go under a balcony, climb a hill (that itself can be a bit slippery), or snuggle up close to an evergreen bush, but it can be done. Even on the rail trail, where the sheets of ice can range all the way across the tarmac, we can (usually) find places on the edges where things are not so slick. Rule of thumb: walk where you see white. White means there is air in the stuff; it will crunch under your weight and give your boots a little better bite on the ground.
Mother Nature seems to be ill content with our finding a way to cope with what she throws at us. A couple of days ago, we had a cold dry snow cover the ground by something like an inch. Just enough so I can’t see the ice. With wetter, heavier snow, it will bind with the ice and provide my boots with a little better hold that will keep me upright. But not this powdery stuff. It just hides the ice and if I step on a patch of it under the snow, it’s like the snow isn’t there at all. I can remember where the ice is, but it’s harder to remember exactly where the edges are. Yeah, I went down again.
Today, we had another couple of inches fall. This stuff is heavier and wetter and it sticks to the ice a bit better. With a little caution, I can now walk on the worst of the slippery places without going down. Waldo, too, is walking (and pooping) where once we feared to tread and the danger has passed.
Until the next warming spell and refreeze…
There’s ice out there.