The snow has completely covered the ground and it’s about eight inches deep. 🙂 It’s the first major snowfall in the area since I’ve lived here that I’ve actually gotten to play in. For the first half of the day I helped around the house, setting up Christmas decorations and wrapping various presents. As I wrapped about a million little presents at the request of my Mother, I sat in the basement and watched ‘Lord of the Rings.’ But after a while I just couldn’t take it anymore; looking out the window at all the snow was just too much to bear. I immediately ran up the stairs, bundled myself up, and ran outside. I took a few pictures, then saw some of the kids from across the street building the most amazing snow fort I have ever seen. It’s practically an igloo! There was a mound of snow about four and a half feet tall, a big doorway, and a little cavern inside. I wandered over and asked if I could help. They were happy to have a tall person to pack more ice and snow on the roof so it wouldn’t cave in. I ended up spending three hours with them, reinforcing the walls, building supports, and ultimately, digging inside the cave to create the second room of the fort. It’s an awesome sight. We were all excited at the idea of it freezing rock hard over night as the softer snow melds with the ice chunks. I’m going to try and go back out tomorrow to help finish up the second room. We wanted to make sure the roof would hold before we dug any further. Having it harden overnight should help.
Tomorrow I think I’ll take the digital camera out and take pictures. 🙂
It was great fun playing with the kids. They ranged in age from four to around 12, I think. Mary, Trevor, Jenni, Paul, and Chelsea. Jenni was my little helper. She followed me around, built supports, and became the curator of the muck. She’d bring me her concoction full of “special ingredients”, which I used as a form of caulking. I’d pile up big chunks of ice, surround it with soft packing snow, and then smooth Jenni’s muck over the whole mixture. If she mixed it just right, by the time I’d smoothed it all out, the muck made everything look like glass. It was very cool.
The best, though, was when the snowplows would come to our pleasant little cul-de-sac. All of the children would get in a fuss, yell “Man your stations!” and we’d all pile out of the cave. We’d stand at our tallest, right around the front border of our igloo, daring those trucks to come anywhere near our building. The drivers all waved at us and carefully avoided our corner of the cul-de-sac, then we’d all cheer and set back to work. When I finally decided to come in out of the snow (at that point I could no longer feel my fingers or my thighs) Jenni got all worried. She asked me to stay, and then said, “What if the snowplows come in the night!? They’ll knock it down!” I assured her they’d see it’s a neighborhood project and they wouldn’t touch it. With that I came back inside and found that my entire legs were bright red from the cold. When I pulled dry pants on I could barely even feel them. With hot cocoa in hand I was very happy to be back inside.
So I didn’t get any work done on the proposal, but I’m okay with that. I had to play in the snow, and it was great meeting the other kids in the neighborhood. They were just so cute. Also, I had really bad writer’s block all day, so it’s a good thing I didn’t stress myself over something that I wasn’t going to be able to get done anyway.
It all worked out okay. And now there’s a really fantastic fort across the street that I can’t wait to get back to. 🙂 The first snowfall of winter is always wonderful, especially when there’s enough of it to build our own little house.