Our Ice Sculpture

Raj and I both find a winter without snow exceedingly annoying. It hasn't been for lack of cold that we haven't had snow; it's just the lack of snow is why we haven't had snow. In lieu of snow, we devised a plan to turn our Holiday Branch into an ice sculpture.  Some of you may not be familiar with a Holiday Branch, although you certainly should be. A Holiday Branch is a large branch dragged out of the woods, stuck in a coal bucket, secured with rocks, and draped with little twinkly lights.


A Holiday Branch is something like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, 

only without Linus's security blanket, or needles or baubles hanging from it's bare and bony branches.  It has only branches and lights.  Until the night before last, that is, when we hooked up a hose and a mister, and let it rain all over the Holiday Branch's parade.  It wasn't long before the Holiday Branch/Ice Sculpture was glinting with ice; it also wasn't long before the whole thing toppled over and fell on it's face, unbalanced by the weight of the ice.  By the time we discovered "Branch, DOWN, the thing was a glittery frozen solid lump; we turned off the hose and the lights, brought the hose in so it wouldn't freeze, and decided to try our luck the next day.


The next day, yesterday, entertaining wild hopes of snow to come, we went outside to see to the lump before it was buried under snow looking even more lumpful.  I kicked it free from the ground while Raj brought over a couple of large logs which we used to brace the coal bucket against the way the sculpture wanted to collapse.  It was snowing by the time we turned on the lights again and voila!  Ice sculpture!