Childhood Dream Come True

No. I didn't end up in The Neverending Story galloping on a white horse along with Atreyu and Artax in Fantasia, but it comes in a close second. My pond froze enough for me to ice skate on!!

I used to daydream as a kid that I had a pond to skate on. I remember I had this book where the dad made a skating rink in the backyard by pouring water on the concrete patio and the little girl in the book got to skate on it. When we lived in New Jersey, where it gets cold enough to skate on ponds, I used to beg my mom to take me out to the big skating pond at night. I would put on my flowy skirt and my mom would shine the headlights on me while I skated all by my self. I was an olympic gold medalist in my mind. I don't remember ever being cold out there and eventually my mom would honk the horn and make me come in. I was never ready, though.

I never really liked going to skating rinks where there were lots of people. It suited me just fine to be all alone where I didn't have to be embarassed. I did eventually, in my teen years, take up skating lessons and spent hours and hours at the skating rink. It was never the same as those nights on the pond with the spotlight on me, though.

So, with these frigid temperatures, I realized that the pond might freeze and had my dad dig out my ice skates and bring them with him when he came to visit today. After we spent half the day trying to thaw out the kitchen pipes (they didn't burst, thank god), I bid my dad goodbye, put the dogs in their kennels, and broke out the old skates. I became an ice princess for a couple hours, just like when I was a kid. I was giddy with joy, I'm embarassed to say...and I took lots of pictures!

The pond in the back corner of the farm and is the future home of the Sebastopol Goslings I'm getting in the spring! Treely was really curious about how mom was gliding around in the trees. She watched the whole time I was out there. Maybe she was just waiting for me to finish being an ice princess so I could bring her dinner.




I still had a few spins in me. I guess skating is like riding a bike. It's been close to 10 years since the last time I skated!


I never quite broke in these skates and my feet were killing me (still are).


These spinning pictures turned out really cool. I started to feel sick after a while, though. Why doesn't that happen when we're kids?


I had so much fun, I'm going to try to go out again in the morning. Temperatures are supposed to get up to 38 in the afternoon, so I don't think my pond skating is going to last much longer. That's okay, though, because I don't know if my blisters will hold up anyways.