A lot of weather happened across the United States this past weekend.  Twenty-six states were under storm warnings by the National Weather Service.  Grocery stores were cleaned out.  Generators were powered up.  And in the Upper Midwest, we braced ourselves for exploding trees.

Except, you know, we don’t have exploding trees.  At least, we didn’t think we had exploding trees before someone published a news story warning us that an upcoming cold snap would cause our trees to explode.  If you want to confuse a whole bunch of people living in a cold weather climate, tell them that the cold weather they’ve experienced decade after decade will make the trees they’ve never seen explode, explode.

“Did you hear about this exploding trees thing?”  I asked a few of my friends.

“Yes,” my friend replied, “and now I’m not sure where to walk my dog.”

“Where do you normally walk your dog?”  my other friend asked.

“Down our street,” Friend #1 said.  “But we have a lot of trees down that street.”

“Where did you walk your dog last year when it was 20-below?”  Friend #2 asked.

“Down that street,” Friend #1 said.

“Did any trees explode?”  Friend #2 asked.

“No,” Friend #1 said.  “But I didn’t even know that was something I had to worry about.”

“The trees make that cracking sound in the winter,” Friend #3 chimed in.  “Do you think that’s what they mean by ‘exploding’?”

“It’s something about the water getting in there,” Friend #2 said.

“There’s always water in there,” I said.  “They’re trees.”

I can’t speak for everyone, but I personally made it through the weekend without seeing any trees explode.  Phew.

I also made it through the weekend without having to do any outdoor winter weather activities; again, phew.  As you know because I’ve told you many, many, maaannny times, I come from an Indoor Family.  My 10-year-old recently joined Cub Scouts, and the other den(?) parents gave me the rundown of the remaining activities for the year so I could get them on my schedule.  One of those events was a sleepover at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in which scouts and parents would watch a UND Men’s Hockey game and a movie and then sleep in tents in the basketball facility.

“How do you set up a tent indoors?”  My mother asked.  “Don’t you need to put the tent pegs into the ground?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I don’t know how to set up a tent outdoors.”

“There are probably instructions in the tent bag,” my mom said.

“Have you ever seen the contents of a tent bag?”  I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Me neither,” I said.

Hanukkah is celebrated over eight nights, and when I was growing up, my family’s approach to Hanukkah gift giving was that we were given little presents – charm bracelets and socks – for the first seven days, and then the eighth night was a large gift which was usually something for the whole family.  One year, for example, we got an Apple IIe computer, which was siiick.

Another year, we got cross-country skis.  As an Indoor Family, this was an unexpected gift.  Even my parents, who gave us the skis, seemed surprised.

We went cross-country skiing the next day.  I’ve blocked a lot of the memory of this activity so I can’t remember exactly where we skied, but I want to say we loaded up the skis and drove to a nearby state park.  There’s also a chance we didn’t load up anything and simply walked across the street to the city park behind our house.  It doesn’t matter.

What mattered is that we had to put on boots, and then put on helmets (really unnecessary), and put on snowpants, and put on jackets, and put on scarves, and put on mittens, and then put on skis and hold poles and get our persons and our items onto the rough-and-ready cross-country skiing…track?  groove?  roadway?…and then move our legs back and forth at a pace that was probably slower than our normal walking pace (seriously could have just worn boots and walked) and slog through the snow in the cold while our scarves got all drippy with our breath and our poles kept getting stuck in things while pretending like we were the type of family who would enjoy such a ridiculous activity.  I think we skied for an hour.  I know we were sorry after five minutes.

We skied maybe two more times over the next year, and then my sister and I blessedly grew out of our ski boots and we talked about getting new boots like Outdoorsy Families probably do, but since we were an Indoor Family, we never did.  Phew.

---

The photo above is of my Grandma Marion (and her dog, Rocky).  Does that look like a woman who would cross-country ski?  Well, I’m her progeny, and in this photo she’s doing the outdoor activity we both do best.

---

This week on North Dakota Today, we talked about the community of Willow City, my Nice People of the Week, as well as a group creating emergency care backpacks for our area kids. (Valley News Live)

I just realized I haven’t posted my last THREE Grand Forks Herald columns on here yet.  Here’s a paragraph from the most recent:

We all moved out of the neighborhood after the Flood of ‘97, and so I didn’t see Tanner again until we were parents ourselves and our own boys were in sports together – first basketball, then hockey and then baseball – and he’d wave in the same casual, unaffected way that he did when we were kids. He would then go back to whatever it was he was doing, which was usually coaching because no matter the activity, Tanner was almost always the coach. (Grand Forks Herald)

And here’s a paragraph from the one before:

Scheduled activities? I’m sorry, we cannot. It’s too cold. Or snowy. Or windy. Or foggy. Or slushy. Or cold, snowy, windy, foggy and slushy. Just the other day, my husband, Kyle, found me in our mudroom taking off my boots. (Grand Forks Herald)

And here’s a paragraph from the one before that:

You’ll be driving and driving in the deep dark of the highway, and just when you start to feel very, very alone you’ll reach Donnybrook, or Bowbells, or Carpio, and for a few seconds it’ll be you and the glowing windows of The Hunter’s Den before you’re right back to it being only you and the moon again. (Grand Forks Herald)

Warren Pietsch is the latest inductee to the North Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame. (KFYR TV)

If you have an extra valentine sitting around, a teacher in Hallock is hoping to receive one from every state. (Facebook)

I love the idea that eating a tamale is unwrapping a gift.  Probably a better gift than cross-country skis. (KVRR, found via Oops Only Good News)

After a flight from Tel Aviv to New York became stuck in Minneapolis, Chabad of Minnesota came, I mean cooked, to the rescue. (Facebook)

---