animals

This past week with all the back-and-forth freeze-and-thaw (so many hyphens) a window well flooded in the back yard. The water then found its way into a crack in our foundation and into the laundry room, which I found Tuesday at midnight. There was a lot of water-bailing that happened that night (and a thank you goes out to Miklos’s dad for stopping by to help us out).

A couple of buckets were left full of water and froze over.  Today I turned one over to see if we could get a puck out of it for the dogs to play with. (Note: More on ice pucks below the pictures.) After it thawed a bit, we had an ice bucket of water. Sometimes winter is really neat.

Dunk! Getting something out of the bucket, not drinking the water as you’d be inclined to believe.

What’s this then?

Hm, yep, yuckily tasty.

Clean! When it drains out like this it looks much better.

We didn’t let them actually drink the water, and the buckets have never had anything in them except water (no chemicals), in case there are any concerns.

How to make an ice puck:

We discovered the puck earlier this winter when one of our plant potters froze over. We turned it over, the puck fell out, and Casey loved pushing it around the yard and crunching on it. I’m going to make some in the spring and summer to help cool down our dogs while they play outside. A few points:

• If you have a large box freezer and some room to spare in it, perfect! You might even be able to make a bucket.
  Fill a bucket that’s never had chemicals in it with water, (uhhh preferably tap water and not ground water like our accidental bucket was made from).  Freeze for a day or two. Bring it outside (careful — it’ll be heavy), turn it over and leave the water in for an icy cold dog drink until it melts.
• If you have a fridge freezer (like us) or you just want to make the pucks, use tupperware containers to fill with water and freeze them. Wait about a day.
  You don’t need to close them, but you can if you need to stack to save room.
• You could also try freezing water in cleaned margarine or yogurt containers. 
• Make a few at a time.
  Casey processes ice cubes quickly in the summer, so when I make these I plan to stock up. Apparently boxers don’t do well with heat, so we’ll do this for Junior if he wants to play outside with Casey in the summer months.
• WARNING: Don’t do this if it’s still freezing cold out — your dog’s tongue could get stuck. We’re currently in yet another thaw day. (When will it end??)

Dogs aside, I kind of want to make a whole bunch of these fancy ice buckets to make an ice castle and live in it.

Think we have enough time left for that this winter?