A line of stalactite icicles dangle from the eaves of our house this year, icicles thick and thin, long and short, like a line of daggers both deadly and beautiful. It takes just the right conditions to create so many icicles, and it doesn’t happen often. But when it does, I can’t help but feel excitement.

Icicles ring our house this year.

A day like we had this week – with a blizzard wind blowing snow sideways, every event cancelled, and icicles reminding us just how cold it is – signaled a special day when I was a child. This was a day when we all hung out in the house.

There wasn’t much time for hanging out on the farm. We always needed to do something. Feed the calves. Clean out the pens. Make hay. Weed the garden. Wash clothes. Chop thistles. You get the picture. Even us kids. But when it happened, hanging out was on a day like today. Even Dad didn’t go outside until it was time to milk the cows.

It was odd for all of us to be in the house for an extended period of time.  What would happen, we kids wondered? What would we do? When icicles hung from the eaves, though, we might make ice cream!

While Mom cooked the custard, Dad took a gunnysack and filled it with icicles he pulled off the garage. Down in the basement, my sisters and I beat the bag of ice with hammers to make small chunks as Mom filled the canister and inserted the paddle. Dad put the canister in the wooden ice cream bucket, attached the handle, and packed ice around the canister, sprinkling the ice with coarse salt to speed the melting and lower the temperature. Then we cranked. And cranked. And cranked.

“Is it ready yet?” we asked again and again. “My arm is tired,” we complained. As the custard thickened and turning the crank became more difficult, the task fell entirely to Dad who never seemed to wear out.

Eventually – probably sooner in real time than it felt to us – the ice cream set. Dad pulled out the paddle and we all stood around scooping the ice cold, slightly salty tasting, sweet treat into our mouths. Delicious. Exotic. So precious in its rarity.

Looking out the window at this year’s icicles and watching the blizzard rage, I considered how wonderful it is that nature hands us these moments. When we’re diverted from our normal routines, when we let go of getting the next task done, and open ourselves to the joy of just spending time with those we love.

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