OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

SNOW MANY OPTIONS
Just when we thought the Farmer's Almanac was spot on with its prediction of a mild winter, we are hit with a seven-inch snowfall, accompanied by gusts up to 40 miles per hour.
City workers were already out working to clean off the roads early Tuesday morning when I pulled into the Mascot office around 4:30 a.m. after "white-knuckling" it for 70 miles from my home in Willmar.
One by one, city trucks were filled with snow and workers drove out to K.P. Kompelien Field to dump the load before getting back in line to be filled again and again. It was like a rehearsed synchronized operation.
Numerous resident owners looked like scurrying ants throughout town cleaning off their own cars, clearing off porches, shoveling sidewalks, and blowing out driveways.
Students had an e-learning day last Monday and the girls' basketball team's schedule game against Central Minnesota Christian School at Prinsburg was postponed on Monday. School was two hours late on Tuesday.
In the good old days, believe it or not, kids actually went outdoors to play in the winter. We built snowmen, had snowball fights, ice skated, built snow forts, jumped on frozen puddles to crack the ice, went sledding, made snow angels .... and then cried for an hour when we went inside to warm up and our fingers and toes started to painfully thaw!
Instead of grumbling about the winter whiteness or frigid temperatures, here are a few ways we can enjoy it in the coming months.

MAKE SNOW ICE CREAM: This is so easy to make and it will surprise you. Send your kids out to fetch a large bowl or bucket of enough "white" snow to make around 12 cups. In a large bowl, add the snow, two tablespoons of vanilla extract, and one small can of sweetened condensed milk, and mix them thoroughly. The mixing process goes through a weird stage, but just keep mixing until it is all blended. That's it! Voila! You have vanilla ice cream. I was skeptical that it would be any good, but I tried it and the ice cream was actually quite good. Kids will love making and eating it. If you would like to make it chocolatey, it's better to mix in a little powder from a hot chocolate packet than it is to add chocolate syrup because the snow melts while you are stirring the condensed milk and vanilla and chocolate syrup makes it too runny. You can also make the ice cream in different colors with a drop or two of food coloring.

SNOW CANDY: Heat up some pure maple syrup to 240 degrees. Find an area outside where there is clean snow and make a small indentation. Drop a spoonful of the heated maple syrup in the indentation. Insert a popsicle stick or a cake pop stick in the middle of the syrup and twirl it around in the snow until it stiffens to the texture of soft taffy. This also works well as long as you like maple.

REAL SNOW CONES: The snow portion of the snow cone is the easy part. Just get a bucket of clean snow. You can either purchase snow cone syrup that usually comes in four flavors or you can make your own. I suggest having the kids help make the real syrup. For orange flavored syrup, put 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of orange juice in a saucepan. Add 1/2 cup of sugar and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until it becomes the consistency of sticky syrup. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature. Pack some snow into a cup and pour the orange syrup on top. For raspberry syrup, use two cups of water and six ounces of fresh or frozen raspberries. Bring to a boil. Pour mixture over a strainer to remove the raspberries, retaining the juice. Add 1/2 cup of sugar and return to a boil. Add two tablespoons of lemon juice and stir. Reduce heat and simmer to the consistency of sticky syrup. Remove from heat and cool.

DEFROST WINDSHIELD IN SECONDS: If you are too lazy or you feel it's too cold to scrape your windshield in the morning, instead of running outside to start your vehicle so the defroster melts the ice way, try this much quicker and easier trick. In a spray bottle, mix two parts of rubbing alcohol to one-part cold water (don't use hot water). Shake it up and then spray the entire iced-up windshield. Allow a few seconds for the mixture to work and then turn on your windshield wipers and watch the ice be removed. It's best to clear the snow covering the ice off the windshield first. The alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water, so the spray bottle can be kept in your vehicle and ready to use when you get off work.

PAPER WAS EARLY LAST WEEK
The Mascot come out Wednesday morning last week because our printer in Madelia was unsure how the weather would be and brought the papers to Minneota a day earlier than normal.
Several people questioned whether the paper will be coming on Wednesdays from now on, but this isn't the case. It will continue to arrive early Thursday morning for shelf sales and will be mailed out on Wednesdays from the Madelia office unless there is another snowstorm that causes the paper to come out earlier.