Synchronized Skating

 We had a lovely snow day yesterday. It was good to see some decent snowfall for a change. I get depressed looking at dead plants. The dormant roots that have been shivering in the bare soil are now tucked cozily under a thick, clean blanket where they can sleep until spring, maybe. It is supposed to stay cold for a while. It’s a comfort that we can still get seasonally appropriate weather.

Heavy snow

The boys had the right idea —curl up and sleep while the snow falls. There’s a great deal of peer pressure to take naps when cats are around. I almost succumbed yesterday, but got up and checked a few things off my to-do list instead.

Best plan for a snow day

The birds were hungry. The snow covered up the sunflower seeds that were on the ground, and the feeder was empty. Not much variety this time of year, mostly juncos, un-gold goldfinches, house finches. I saw a tree sparrow, identifiable by the dark spot on the chest.

Tree sparrow, left; junco, right

A male downy woodpecker worked on the last bits of seeds in the bottom of the feeder, as did a junco.

The red spot on the back of the woodpecker's head identifies it as male.

The weather report said we had 5” of snow. It shoveled more like 12”. It wasn’t heavy, praise be, but it was deep.

A "generous" five inches of snow on the deck

The glass greenhouse had squinty eyes, undoubtedly because of the brightness of the snow.

Squinty eyes on the greenhouse

The door to the coop was open when I went out to do the chores this morning, but only junco tracks were in the snow. Wussy chickens.

Coop door open; only junco tracks in the snow

I shoveled out the snow in front of the door and put down some scratch grains. The Wyandotts and Goldie got right on it. A Dominique looked out the door and said, “You have got to be kidding me,” and went back inside.

Bonnie, Dottie, and Goldie eat scratch grains; Dominique hesitates in the doorway

As much as the girls hate walking in the snow, they LOVE eating snow. It is hard to get my work done with the hens pecking at my boots.

Brownie and Dottie peck at the snow on my boots

Meanwhile, Terry fired up the snowblower to do the driveway. When I was done with the chickens, I tidied up around the garage door where the snowblower won’t fit. I also shoveled a path from the basement door to the box where we keep the sunflower seeds and over to the feeder so I could refill it. I also dug down to where the seeds on the ground were. I barely got into the house before the juncos were back.

A man and his snowblower

Terry heard on the radio that the regional synchronized skating championships were going to be in Rockford this week. We’d never heard of synchronized skating, but we had fun at a skating competition in Buffalo, so we took Friday off to go.

The two regions in the competition were Midwest (makes sense) and Pacific (??). There were only five teams that made it all the way from the west coast, and each category got four medals (gold, silver, bronze, and pewter). Almost everyone’s a winner! There were lots of teams from the Midwest.

Synchronized skating is like synchronized swimming. There aren’t any jumps like in individual or pairs figure skating, but there are spins. The trick is to get 9 to 21 people to do the same thing at the same time. Not easy. Lines form and reform. Most groups had two lines pass through each other. Only two teams attempted skating in a figure 8 with the skaters passing each other at the intersection between the two loops.

Each routine started with a huddle. Most of the skaters were white girls. Even the group from Chicago did not have any girls of color. That didn’t seem right. My assumption that this sport would be cheaper than figure skating was wrong. Terry chatted up one of the vendors in the hallway during a break and discovered that the skates run $1200 a pair. Egad. Price probably excludes a lot of girls. Too bad. It seems like a good sport, with exercise, discipline, working with others, and no concussions. Probably a lot of butt bruises, though.

Huddle

After the huddle, the team set up to begin and waited for the music. This group had more elaborate outfits than most. A fair number of teams dressed in black.

Waiting for the music

Here they are doing a pretty good job of spinning in unison. The photo shows less synchrony than we could detect live.

Spinning not quite synchronously

Here is another group with colorful uniforms. This one includes a boy, who is taller and is not wearing a skirt.

A boy at the left

Most groups skated in parallel rows for part of their program.

Parallel lines

The better groups skated in lines going around in circles.

Windmill lines

It didn’t take us long to be able to tell which groups were better than others. This team had not only the fanciest uniforms (which reminded us of Irish dancers), but also had the tightest synchrony.

Fancy uniforms, tight formations

Spinning

Between every five or six teams, there was a break to groom the ice.

Here comes the Zamboni

Some aspects of the competition reminded me of Girl Scout Conventions, like when groups from a particular place all wore yellow feathers in their hair. Or this group, all of whom sported tiny witch’s hats. Their team competed in black with faux-tattered skirts.

Tiny witch hats

We saw a Skater Mom walking around with a toothbrush and a giant jar of goo. Terry solved the mystery when he saw her putting goo on a girl’s hair. Every single girl on the ice, by the way, had long hair in a bun.

Skater Mom with hair goo

At the end of a class, there were awards. The entire team was called to the ice and lined up behind two girls standing on a podium designed for one. Medals were awarded to the two on the podium. The other team members already were wearing them. After that, they had their pictures taken as individual teams. The woman coordinating all this movement skated as if she had been born with skates on her feet. Finally, the girls from each team knelt down and kissed the ice. Hmm. How did that tradition start?

Awards podium

We watched for about four hours then headed for home before it got dark. We worried unnecessarily about drifting snow. It was smooth sailing.

Terry gave a good summary of the day: All of those girls got to be a princess for a day.