Ice doesn't grow on trees. Well mostly.

Dear Blog Reader.

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am doing fine. I am in the second week of my summer vacation. The 1st week in late June was recent enough that I still have some residual rejuvenation left. So when I add this rejuvenation onto the residual rejuvenation, I should be good to go through November. There is a lot to do between now and then; still plenty of garden to grow, and winter wood to cut during the fall weekends. It is always a great time to put the headphones on tune into the Purdue game on Saturday or the Colts game on Sunday and enjoy the great outdoors while cutting and splitting firewood.

We are back on the shores of the lovely Indiana Lake. For those of you familiar with the blog you know which lake I am talking about and the terrible injustice when the citizens of the Indiana Territories had the naming rights stolen by the usurpers to the North in what came to be derisively known as Michigan. Don't worry, the wheels of justice are rolling; preparing to reverse this wrong that was thrust upon we Hoosiers. You can help. Every time you speak of the lake on the Northern edge of Indiana refer to it as Lake Indiana. Over time, it will creep into the vernacular and its usage will become more wide spread. At precisely the proper moment, (the tipping point so to speak) my legal team will file the appropriate paperwork and the next thing you know the map makers will be doing bang up business making new atlases and fold out maps proudly proclaiming Lake Indiana starting at the Northern edge of Indiana and proceeding all the way to the Canadian border.

We are in a lovely cabin in the lovely lake shore community of Beverly Shores. We are in a big house that three brothers built into the side of a sand dune. The house has three doors on three landings  that come out on grade level where that part of the house tumbles down the hill. The brothers are engineers and using a winch powered sand sled to excavate the sand off of the side of the hill, created grade and built a house in the side of the hill. Most of us, most of the other builders in fact would look at the dune and take a bulldozer to knock the top of the hill off and start building. It is a unique building. The lovely Miss Beverly found this place a couple of years ago. So we switch back and forth between a small rental in Sawyer, Michigan and this huge 4 story four bedroom hole in the hill for our goto vacation solutions.

The lovely Miss Beverly does a great job finding places like this. I just wanted to make sure that I gave her credit publicly for her great work at finding hospitable places off the beaten path. I also want to give her credit for a line that I will use later in blog. I would do it at the time but by that time the blog will be running with so much momentum to its conclusion that I don't want to slow down to credit the lovely Miss Beverly and her very funny line. Up here though, near the top, the meandering bits of the blog, there is plenty of time to say it was a great line and she is great at finding places for vacation and offering her hospitality to those around her.

The Sawyer, Michigan cabin, the one from our June vacation,  is small and mostly for Bev and I to hang out together. This house is big and begs to have people here to enjoy all of the space. So Chris and Grace are here. Last night a couple of Bev's sisters and all or part of their families came up. In fact a few friends of Amy and Amy, Patty's youngest, came also. Patty is Bev's sister who migrated to Iowa and is fully assimilated to Hawkeye land. So, last night we had a house full of 5 teenagers in the house.

I want to take a second to declare my admiration for all of the nieces and nephews. I have made it a strict policy as an uncle not to pay attention to any of them until they become interesting. They have done nicely through the years. Of the 20 nieces and nephews, all have turned out to be interesting in their own time. What is interesting? Like that dirty old man on the Supreme Court, "I can't define it but I know it when I see it." Twenty for twenty is pretty good.

Like I said  we had three nieces and nephews and two friends here for Saturday afternoon through Sunday noon enjoying the fruits of Lake Indiana and a house full of fun. As much as I love these children and their interests in Purdue, AP this and that, running, volleyball and ice cream, I was dismayed at their lack of a certain life skill.

Everyone had spent an afternoon in the sun, looking at and wading out into about a billion gallons of water. When they got back to the cabin, they ran to the cabinet, got out a glass for water, and opened up the freezer for ice to make that water even more refreshing. Upon opening the freezer they were stopped in their tracks.

"Where's the ice," they moaned.

"It's in the freezer", came the chorus of adults.

"Where?"

"In the freezer in those blue plastic trays."

"What? Well how do you get ice out of those?"

At that I despaired. We have raised a bunch of children without this basic manual labor experience. So the aunts and uncles chimed in about twisting and turning the blue trays and expounded on how that torquing would cause the ice cubes to pop out. Some of us old timers even shared about the prehistoric times before plastics that could bend without breaking in sub freezing temperatures were developed; back when we moved into the 1970's. That's right kids back in the olden days our ice cube trays were made out of aluminum. They had this set of louvred paddles on a spine that slid back and forth when you pulled really hard on this six inch handle. A couple of pulls back and forth and the cubes would be loosened enough to pour into the bucket and refill with water. Let's be honest here. How many of you convinced your little sister or brother to stick their tongue on the frozen aluminum ice tray? Come on. It's okay your among friends. Really? Well you weren't very interesting as children now were you?

So the crisis was averted. Ice was put into glasses. Thirsts were quenched, and a few lessons were learned. Well almost. I thought that civilization had been advanced until I went to the freezer a half an hour later and found three trays with 1 or 2 cubes in each. What? Empty the tray and refill it with water for the next person. The ice fairies do not sense the empty ice tray and then automatically refill the tray with water to the proper level for automatic ice replenishment. No, considerate people realize that in order for the group to benefit from the cooling properties of cold water the near empty trays have to be refilled. Ice does not grow on trees people. Well . . . except durning ice storms then it does grow on trees. (Nice one Bev.) But still you get the picture.

What will happen if the government decides that automatic ice dispensers cause global warming, ozone depletion, earthquakes or the spread of zika? They will ban automatic ice makers. That's what will happen and all of your children of a certain age will stand in the kitchen, freezer door ajar, mouth agape, ice cream melting onto the floor, wondering how do I get the ice out of these blue trays and when it is empty how do I get it refilled.

I say people run to a cabin in the woods or unplug the ice maker in your house; run down to the nearest museum store and by two or three blue plastic ice trays; fill them up and show your youths how to empty them the first time and then berate them constantly that ice doesn't grow on trees until they figure it out.

Or have a crazy uncle do it for you. It will help make them a little more interesting.

Take care.

Roger.