Icy sidewalks – including the sidewalk outside Ann Arbor Open – force pedestrians into the street. A woman passing me says, “I’m not risking my neck on those sidewalks!”
Brooks Street
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Yes, I saw people walking in the street on Brooks too (including County Commissioner Conan Smith). On the positive side, I saw a lot of people out today, Brooks and elsewhere, taking advantage of the warmth and sunlight to chip away at the ice on their sidewalks.
Ace Hardware is now out of ice melter.
By the way, I possess an ice breaking tool given to me a couple of decades ago. Looks like a hoe that hasn’t been bent to make an angle. I’ll bet many people younger than 45 or so have never used one.
I’m 48 and we’ve had one of those ice breaking tools for 5 or so years. I certainly never saw one growing up in New Mexico! :-)
Saw in tweet from Ruth earlier where she was wondering about AAPS maintenance during break. The Slauson sidewalk along the Buena Vista dogleg is iced over. The Washington stretch is mostly clear.
My husband sent me out for an ice spud today. Term was new to me and of course the hardware store was out of ice tools.
Here is a [link] with photos of spuds for ice fishermen. I remember seeing a tool like Vivienne described many years ago. Today we settled for a spade and water softener salt.
Kathy / #4: those spuds are intriguing. The tool we have has a straight blade – similar to the “Ames 4 in. Chopping Scraper” shown in google images, except ours likely came from Stadium HW.
Re my own report in #3: I was wrong about Slauson sidewalks on Washington street. The eastern half of that stretch (east of the parking lot entrances) was thoroughly icy. To my surprise, their stretch on 8th Street was clear (despite being on a hill). Crest is a mess, with all the sledder foot traffic.
(and not really related, since this is more about edible ice than ice on sidewalks, but my search for images led me to a web site dedicated to antique ice tools!
[link]
Some strange and interesting stuff therein.)
Edible ice? How about edible snow?
When I was a child, we had snow ice cream. One brought in fresh clean snow (avoiding the feared Yellow Snow), added sugar and vanilla. It was lovely.
Few would be brave enough to attempt this now.