Ice Cream Loving German Shepherd

My family had a long-standing Christmas/New Year tradition of having supper with our dear friends, Betty and Benny.  She was a superb cook, and they loved to entertain. Going to their house was a special treat. They kept a guest book, replacing it as the old one's filled up with the people they had entertained. It was fun to read the comments about the delicious food and congenial company.

They also observed their upbringing by praying before meals. At an earlier dinner party when several couples were present for a celebration, Benny returned thanks as usual. Everyone respectfully bowed their heads, expecting him to thank God for His many blessings.  Instead, to our surprise, he said, "Bless this bunch while we crunch our lunch."

Betty jerked her head up. "For shame, Benny!" 

He was unmoved by her scolding. "What? I asked God to bless us, didn't I?"

So, you can see he was fun loving and occasionally a little irreverent. He and my dad got along great. Amen.

At the holiday get-together in question, my mother took a freezer of homemade ice cream as her contribution to the feast. It had blizzarded a few days earlier. There were huge snow drifts at Benny's back door. 

Instead of asking Betty to find space in her deep freeze for the ice cream, Mom just shoved the container into the snow, knowing it wouldn't melt. A couple of hours after the meal everyone decided they might have room for dessert.  Mom and Betty slipped out the back door and discovered the lid was off.  Uh oh.

Benny's dog, a German Shepherd, had found the ice cream and hadn't waited until someone offered him a bite. He had nosed the lid off and lapped up the unexpected treat as deep in the container as his nose would reach. From there he licked as far as his tongue would stretch. In two hours he had eaten about half of it.

Wait. What if it wasn't the dog? Perhaps a wild animal smelled the ice cream. Maybe it had rabies, or, I don't know, rabies or something. No worries. The dog's tongue could reach way down inside an ice cream container, but it couldn't erase the telltale stickiness from its muzzle and brow. In fact, he wagged his tail and begged for more.

To this day, I have trouble reconciling what happened next with the character of these ladies. But really, how could two thrifty wives waste perfectly good homemade ice cream?

Making certain their unsuspecting husbands remained out of sight and hearing in the dining room, they wiped off tell-tale dog hair and scraped another half inch from the surface of the remaining concoction. That was washed down the drain. Although the dog had licked the inside of the container until it sparkled, they cleaned it with a damp washcloth. Whispered promises not to tell, smirks and sign language accompanied the covert operation.

Not a wink, sidelong glance or snigger indicated anything was amiss as they served dessert.

That was years ago. I was there. I saw it. My husband and I dipped our own ice cream last and made sure it came from the very bottom of the container.

My mom is capable of taking a secret to her grave. Apparently, so could Betty. Benny and my dad never learned that the dog got first dibs on the ice cream.

You shouldn't be surprised.  Rule 10: Mom has been practicing pranks for decades, even though she didn't plan this one. Maybe Betty had a few pranks under her belt as well.

White Mountain website 
Here is a cool link with directions and recipes for homemade ice cream.

Snowmobile

Merry Christmas. This isn't a holiday memory, but it is associated with winter. 

We have a cousin in the Oklahoma Panhandle who had all the toys. He probably thought the same about us. During the winter, he played as hard as he had worked all spring, summer, and fall on his farm. 

In the late 1970's, he and his dad owned a set of snowmobiles, a Harley Davidson and a John Deere model. The chances of snow weren't all that dependable in their locale, but they watched the weather reports and traveled to the white stuff if it wasn't too far away.

That is how they showed up at our farm after we were blessed with heavy snowfall. The pasture provided well over one hundred unobstructed acres in which to play if we stayed away from the pond and windmill. The adventurous could catch some air on a couple of small hills. None of us had the proper clothing, but we weren't far from the house if we got too cold or wet. 

To me, the snowmobiles looked like a motorcycle on skis. I never liked riding behind my husband on his Honda. He said I didn't know how to move with the bike. Sitting on the ground on skis, a snowmobile looked more stable, and I had fun sitting behind him, riding around the pasture on the Harley. 

In their conversations about the merits of the John Deere over the Harley, I remember that the guys said the John Deere was faster. In their opinion, the Harley was overweight and underpowered, but it would still get up to 40 mph. I thought that was an excellent benefit since to me it meant the Harley wouldn't get any crazy ideas like doing an unanticipated, motorized ski jump. 

However, it did demonstrate its shortcomings when we topped a hill and found a deep snowdrift. We broke through the crust, and the Harley sank like a skater falling through the ice on a pond. I could see why it wouldn't float on top of five or six feet of loose snow, but I didn't understand why it lost momentum and wouldn't keep going once there were only a few inches of snow between it and the ground. Maybe it had something to do with the skis. As I've mentioned before, mechanical devices confound me. Anyway, it lost traction. We got off and stomped the snow down around the machine. My husband said we'd have better luck getting it out of the drift if he walked along beside it running the controls while I pushed. In other words, we needed to lighten the load and get out of the drift.

It sounded like a reasonable suggestion since I didn't know the brake from the throttle, or how to put it in gear. I was only along for the ride. We got into position. I placed my hands at the back of the seat and got ready to push. He restarted the machine and nudged the throttle. No luck.

He explained I was going to have to push harder, so I dug my cold, wet feet into the packed snow like I was a racer in starting blocks and leaned into the seat. He put it in gear again and twisted the throttle. Before I could jump out of the way, the track (oh, that's what makes it go!) plastered me head to toe with half a foot of snow. I looked like the front side of a snowman.

He pretended to be surprised, but later admitted he wanted to roll in the snow laughing. Trying to defend himself, he said I should have intuitively known how snowmobiles move on snow. I didn't see any signs that warned of rear discharge. He said I looked as good in white snow as I did walking down the church aisle in my wedding dress. He said a lot of outrageous lies trying to calm my ire. 

After that, I don't recall what it took to get the Harley out of the drift. I wasn't speaking to him. I know I didn't 'push' it again. He jokes that I was so steamed up, my clothes were dry and warm when we got to the house.

Once there, the real ribbing began. He was hailed as a genius for managing to appear innocent while getting me into such a predicament. My name and the word gullible were linked quite a few times. To this day he claims he was gallantly protecting me from being run over by the snowmobile. 

Guess What?  That was the last time I rode one. And we are still married.