The World According to Charlotte, part 3

As has been well documented, Charlotte enjoys the ritual of shoveling snow and chopping ice. Whenever we get out of the car in the afternoon and head from the garage to the house, she will stop to either shovel or chop.

Our sidewalk in the backyard is basically a giant riverbed, so all the thaw runs to the sidewalk and then freezes when the sun goes down.  This is fun for Charlotte because we get to chop the ice and find water underneath.  But we've had some nasty coldspells (still!) so lately there has been nothing but ice almost all the way to the cement.

But last night's freeze was a gentle one, meaning today when we chopped the ice, I found about an inch of water underneath which Charlotte was happy to see.

So Charlotte looked down at the trench of standing water and said, "It's a Mississippi River."

Kind of, I guess.