snow

The girl and I take a walk almost every day. Here are a few favorite sights. Despite the foot of fresh snow from a few days ago and the ridiculously high snowbanks, the sun is shining, the birds are flitting about singing happily and water is running through the drainage ditch. Looks like a stream doesn’t it? I suppose it is, I think it runs year round. The girl happily splashed through puddles as I paused to take pictures of some of our favorite things. We didn’t make it around the block as the sidewalk on Main St. is still impassable. Usually the town makes quick work of clearing the sidewalks with a huge orange tractor/snowblower thingy but we didn’t see it today. It’s had a busy winter, maybe it’s taking a break. I don’t expect that was our last snow but it’s possible it was the last really good dumping. Who knows when we’ll see the ground again! (The last photo was taken the day after the storm.)

Sunday night brought a heavy spring snow that added a foot of fresh snow to our already piled yard. The heavy snow also took a toll on the trees and brought down lots of branches and smaller sticks as well. Monday was a snow day from school for the boy but the sun came out and made for great playtime out in the snow. The girl was delighted as she loves sticks and the snow cover has made it very hard to find sticks on our walks. The girl began picking up fallen sticks and planting them in the snow with just a little help from me. Here she is, quite pleased with her completed stick garden.

We’ve had a great amount of snow this winter and the huge bank on one side of the driveway tempted my husband into digging a tunnel through it. With a bit of work from both ends we managed to dig it out just wide enough for a sled to pass through. It’s best to go down prone and feet first, luge style. Or if you’re younger than 10 you might get away with skeleton style, head first. Adults may get stuck and need to be rescued by energetic kindergartners. I wish I knew how to put a video in but I haven’t figured that out yet. We’ve had great fun with it, especially the girl, last year she hated the snow, this year she is considering the pre-school winter X-games!

And now I am going to consider myself officially caught up to real blog time as these pictures were taken yesterday! Another storm this week brought 6 inches of powder topped with a good 3/4 inches of hardened ice. After the earlier success with the igloo, the girl and I decided to build bigger. We chose one of the 6 foot tall snow banks at the street end of the driveway as a good place to build a tower. The kids had trudged a path along the top of the ridge to the top of this bank already. The girl and I broke up the ice into “bricks” and carried them up to the building site. I did a little prep with the shovel and then we started laying the bricks in a semi-circle. The bottom portion I “mortared” with snow but you can see the “bricks” are simply laid on top of each other nearer the top. We practiced our princess waving to the neighbors and the boy enjoyed playing in the fort as well. They kids decided to play at being Pazu and Sheeta, characters from one of our favorite movies, must-see Castle in the Sky from Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. (We have the Disney two disc set which includes the original Japanese version on the second DVD.)

We’ve had a lot of snow this year, starting earlier than usual. I love snow and the kids are old enough to really enjoy it. One of the storms dumped annoying sleet at the end of a good amount of snow. We don’t like that sort of thing normally, but we decided to make lemonade out of lemons. The kids walked around crunching the hardened top layer into one inch thick pieces. On one side of the driveway the girl and I stacked the pieces quite easily into an igloo shape. She then requested a candle but since it was the middle of the day I figured we would wait until it was dark to light a candle. It snowed again before I had a chance to snap a picture!

. . . where the driveway just gets smaller. The snow started earlier than usual this year and it’s stayed pretty cold so it’s really starting to pile up. The bank in front of the house is threatening to engulf the lamppost. We have steps cut into a bank at the end of the driveway that allow the kids to easily climb up to sled down into the backyard. The bank on the side yard will have to take most of the snow tomorrow when we clear the driveway, if we can heave it up that high. This picture is actually from the last storm, but you get the idea. I don’t really know how deep it is unpiled, three feet or more? Most of it has been powder, so we’ve done lots of sledding but not much snowman construction. So far it’s been fun!

Have fun in the sun even in the winter snow. Get out your buckets and sand molds and make a snow castle! Sheet foam or construction paper triangles taped to sticks will give your castle a festive touch.

Even a spot for a royal couple.