First, here's a slightly less close up shot of the object...

Patsy, Vickie and Cat all had the right idea -- ice, but it's not ice on cobblestones or windshields, it's ice hanging from my front porch!
It's a close up of the icicle hanging the farthest to the right.
Sunrise today was at around 10 am, and it will set at 3:30 this afternoon, which means we are down to about five and a half hours of daylight. It's very strange, and I am not used to the idea at all, but I am happy that we have even that much daylight.
It snowed last night, so everything has a nice white cover again. Thor and I shoveled tracks for the Suburban tires before I took him to school this morning, because it's so much easier to shovel when the snow isn't packed down.
I shoveled off half of the driveway, but left the rest for the kids to deal with when they get home from school today. You can see how much snow we got last night. Not as much as the last time it snowed.

The dogs had another big morning, completely losing their minds over the fact that the snowplow, snowblower, and dump trucks invaded their territory again. Ijiot dogs.
A shot from my front window...

This huge snowblower comes around, followed by four dump trucks, and gets rid of all the snow. It's a pretty great system, because it doesn't dump snow across the end of our driveway. That enormous pile of heavy snow is my very leastest favorite part of winter.
Except for stepping in puddles of melted snow by the back door when I am wearing only socks. I hate wet socks.
That happens to me a lot, because I never wear shoes in the house. Summer or winter, hot or cold, at home I never wear shoes and only wear socks if my feet are cold. I don't know if this is a Minnesota thing, or a family thing...I do know that my Mom never wears shoes inside, and that her mom never did. Mom remembers her mom yelling "Lorraine! Find my shoes!" any time a car pulled up into the farmyard.
I am not sure how I got from a photo of an icicle to my maternal grandmother, and I am not sure I could do it on purpose. But we are very good at tangents and digressions in my family. That and having hot feet.