The icicles and ice dams on our house, before my husband began chiseling away at the ice.
CLINK. CLINK. CLINK.
Removing ice dams via a hammer and chisel may not be the quickest and easiest way to accomplish ice removal, but it’s certainly the least expensive method (unless you fall and injury yourself, of course).
On Thursday, when temperatures here in southern Minnesota hovered around a balmy 40 degrees, the hardy Minnesotans in my neighborhood took to their ladders. They knew this was their single chance to pick away at the monstrous ice dams threatening their homes.
A view I took through the kitchen window of my husband on the ladder, chiseling at ice damns.
First, Bob across the street hammered for hours at the ice on his porch roofline. I didn’t worry about him until I saw him climb onto his roof and then stand there like he didn’t quite know how to get down. I kept the cell phone close by, just in case. But eventually he swung his leg around, planted his foot firmly on a ladder rung and descended cautiously to the icy ground.
A few hours later, in the dark of early evening, my husband planted his ladder in the backyard snow mountain, climbed a few rungs until he could reach the ice-dammed eave troughs and began hammering and chiseling away.
Occasionally I would peer out the window or door, checking on his progress, but mostly checking to see that he hadn’t slipped from the ladder.
For some two hours he hammered and tossed huge chunks of ice from the roof. I’ve never been to Antarctica, but I can only imagine our yard now resembles a mini version of a broken ice shelf with chunks of ice strewn haphazardly atop the snow. But better the ice littering our yard than weighing heavy upon the house.
While my husband-miner mined, the next-door neighbor also attempted ice removal. I don’t know that she’s cut out to be a miner as the clink, clink, clink didn’t continue for long. But then again, her mine (house) doesn’t appear to have the same rich, natural deposit of ore (ice) as our mine (house).
Ice dam chunks litter the backyard snow mountain.
© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Your pictures are always so cool!
I love the tap tap of the hammers on ice. Tink, tink……
Hey, thanks re. the cool photos. Technically, these aren’t especially good images. But with low light conditions and shooting through a dirty kitchen window, I was limited. I didn’t want to freeze my fingers by stepping outside and then risk getting knocked in the head by a falling ice chunk. I was trying to get a photo of the falling ice, but I never knew when the ice would fall and I just couldn’t catch it at the right time, especially with a slow shutter speed.
I found your blog from my friend Bernie’s blog, I love finding other MN bloggers!! It got pretty warm up here in Duluth Minnesota as well, very wierd up here, and we had a lot of folks doing the same thing. I think that was our January thaw that came a little early, even that little bit of warmth made me long for summer! Ahhhh only 5 months to go…………..
Michele, thanks for hopping over to Minnesota Prairie Roots from Bernie’s blog. I checked out your blog too. I’m finding so many new and interesting blogs lately via new readers to my blog. How am I going to find time to read all of them AND write?
Anyway, I’m with you on this whole winter getting long perspective. And winters here in southeastern Minnesota are considerably shorter than in Duluth.
I have to admit I don’t envy your “mine” at all. I love to look at the snow from the warmth and comfort of my cozy snuggie and roaring fire, but would not look forward to having to chip ice from my house. I love your pictures and have gone back quite a ways and have read your posts. My family and I used to vacation in Southern Minnesota in the summer so I love reading about my favorite childhood state!! Love your writing style and adore the photos you post too!
So glad you’re enjoying trips back to southern Minnesota via Minnesota Prairie Roots stories and images. I love discovering interesting people and places and then sharing my finds with readers.
I’m curious. Where did you vacation in southern Minnesota? Why there? Where did you grow up? That’s me, always full of questions.
I was born and raised in Central Missouri. My dad was an avid fisherman and heard one year that the fishing in Minnesota was excellent and he was very interested in catching a Northern Pike. From the pictures, stories and my vague memories, he did very well fishing there, but I am not sure if he ever did get the Pike he was after…. My mom actually turned their boat over once when they caught a “dogfish”. To hear the story, they actually “bark” (grunt) when caught and brought out of the water into the boat…. I guess my mom wanted GONE and she couldn’t swim so it was one of those stories that my dad laughed all the way through telling….. I was young when we went, so if my memories from 30 years ago are correct we stayed around (forgive me for misspelling or my memory fading) Millack Lake . Might not have been Southern but again it was quite a long time ago. Mom and Dad vacationed there for 13 years straight, before, during and after my birth… Then we went to Tennessee ReelFoot Lake for 7 years after that… Straight… Mom and Dad were not the adventurous vacation types.
Yes, Minnesota with its 10,000-plus lakes offers some great fishing. Unfortunately, the county where I grew up didn’t have a single lake, of which I’m aware. But then that was in the middle of the southwestern Minnesota prairie.
You almost got the name of the lake right. It would be Mille Lacs, one of Minnesota’s biggest lakes in the east-central part of the state. Interestingly enough, I’ve never been there, although my husband has been ice fishing on the lake.
Thanks for sharing your “childhood vacation in Minnesota” story.