Watching ice melt

We watched ice melt today, our own versions of icebergs and glaciers. The first was an iceberg, one we'd made by almost freezing a cup of red dyed water, that we plopped into a bowl of luke warm tap water. We watched it spin and turn, rather than just calmly float; we watched bubbles escaping from the ice and listened to the sounds they made; we watched the red dyed water seep out into the clear tap water in waves, ultimately blending and leaving all the water red. I think the latter was my favorite observation of that experiment.

The second ice we watched melt today was one of our hand made glacier-like things, only having done the experiment I now think its only redeeming value was the hilarity of wathcing it fall apart. Either the directions in the book of experiments was wrong, or else they weren't well described, because the resulting "glacier simulation" was really nothing of the sort. Yesterday we filled plastic cups with an inch of pebbles and sand, then added water up to two inches and froze the whole concoction. Today we fastened the "glacier" to an inclined plane to watch the melt runoff. Only everything we've read is about how glaciers move down towards the sea, rocks and all, not about how glaciers melt and allow their drippy, rock and sand laden water rivulets run into the ocean. And not that the latter doesn't happen, but I think some of the basic glaciery things that make glaciers glaciers were lost here. Still, watching ice melt sure beats watching paint dry.

Then, because the heat was coming back at the end of the day along with the storms, we met Jon at Hudson Mills metropark for some play time (the two of them playing along the river, me getting a chance to run the trails) before a picnic lunch.

The mushrooms are almost as plentiful as the mosquitos, and a quite a bit more enjoyable.

The workboxes are continuing to serve us well. They feel like a compromise to me, and I guess I can live with that. The rest of our day was a blur of biking, trains, piano, David Attenborough, some math, some art (an Antarctica felt set has been requested), quiet reading time, and ice cream after dinner with Oma and Opa, and it ended with beautiful storms lighting up the night and bringing the cooler air back. That's a good day.