Brrr!

It's cold! We didn't get much more than a dusting as far as snow goes, but that arctic air made up for the lack of snow fall. No school today or tomorrow due to dangerously low temperatures. How low?

Shortly after I downloaded this picture, the "feels like" temp dropped to -39*. Yep, it's cold!

A couple years ago I bought a heater for my bird bath. It doesn't really "heat" the water but it keeps the water temperature above freezing. That little thing worked like a champ today. It has never had such a challenge but it kept a nice little circle of water ice free for the poor, frozen birds

When I heard a couple days ago that our temperature was supposed to drop so low, I looked for experiments to do in the cold weather. I figured it would probably never get this cold again, at least not while my kids are living at home, so we should make the most of it. I found several, including timing how long it takes for a wet item to freeze, blowing bubbles & watching them freeze, hammering a nail with a frozen banana, throwing boiling water into the air, etc. We decided to try the boiling water experiment and the frozen bubbles. It was entirely too windy to do the bubble experiment well. The wind kept whipping away the bubbles before I could catch them. We did manage to freeze one, but the wind whisked it away quickly, too. It doesn't have to be super cold for that one to work, so we will have to retry it on another winter day. We really enjoyed the boiling water experiment and did it multiple times. And when I say "we", I mean I went outside while everyone else observed from the window or open door. I was bundled up with gloves on and within 5 minutes my fingers hurt from the cold.

As I was closing the curtains around dinner time, I noticed a lone ice crystal on one of the windows. It was so pretty. The sun was going down fast, so I could only get a couple pictures & I had to take them from inside, so they aren't as good as I had hoped. But, they are still pretty.