Monday, January 1, 2018

A Tale of Ice and Cold

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Happy New Year!  


We started the New Year off right with shots of Ningxia Red! 
It had been the first White Christmas in a while. But on New Year's we got Slammed with a Arctic Wall of Cold.  Suddenly, it was so cold the kids didn't even want to go outside and play.   It was -15 when we got up, but it got up to a balmy -5 during the 'heat' of the day.


But it motivated me to do some Experimenting.  
I showed the kids what can happen if you throw boiling water out the door when it's -10 (in the -20s with wind chill) degrees outside!  It turns to snow instantly.  So Cool! 


Sam was ready to play! 
Meanwhile, the boys were Perfectly ok playing indoors!  Chris was so crazy to finally be not grounded, he played in the basement most of the morning.  
But he did venture up to play in other ways.  



The Family Band!! 



Yes, it's Loud.  Yes, they are Crazy.  
But for once, they are doing something, the same thing.  Together. 
And I love it. 



We resumed the semi-regular performance of 
Star Wars: The Crazy Wars. 



But even Chris got bored with being indoors. 
So I recruited him to come outside and blow bubbles with me, for Science. 

He blew bubbles, and let me try to photograph. 
As the sunset.  
It was Beautiful. 

For about one minute.  Apparently, that's all he could handle. 



However, in that one minute time, though I didn't get any photos of the bubbles freezing, I did get this one, (with my cell phone of all things!) of a bubble deflated and crystalline after popping and blowing into the snow.  Very Cool.  It ended up being my favorite shot of the evening.  I put this one up for my themed photo of the day.  

I Am Here. 
I am crazy enough to go outside when it's -10 and take pictures of bubbles.  
And then Chris had to go inside.  

But it was ok, I had another volunteer helper. 


Eric volunteered (sort of) to help me go outside and photograph bubbles.  
And he did a great job.  The first ones didn't even come off the wand! 


See the frosty edge of the bubble, it was freezing before they even left the wand.  
The kept popping so fast.  


If you look closely, you can see the lines of crystallization.  


See how the bubbles get foggy or cloudy.  That's the bubble freezing! 


These bubbles couldn't even retain their shape they were freezing so fast. 


This was the neatest shot, you can see the crystals swirling on the bubble.  So Cool. 


This bubble hit the ground and didn't pop immediately.  
The frozen crust of bubble, just kind of changed shape with the air, like 


I loved the way the bubble rolled, I was actually able to chase this one a bit. 


Can you see the concrete print in the bubble?  
So neat. 


The Bubble cracked down the middle.  And still didn't disintegrate.  
But these last four photos, I took though I didn't know if I got the shots, because I couldn't feel my fingers at all.  It was time to go inside.   
Talk about suffering for my art. 


I curled up on the couch, and got serenaded by the cast of 
Star Wars: The Crazy Wars.  

It looks like it's going to be an Amazing Year!  

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