My Snowman

As a child, I looked forward to snow. Snow was magical. Snow meant sledding and snowball fights. Snow meant - maybe- a day home from school. We built forts and snowmen and generally reveled in the beauty of the day. Cold? never. We would have been hypothermic before going indoors on our own. Our parents would summon us and we would run blue lipped and soaking wet to the warm comfort of our homes, which we suddenly appreciated. My mother would make us hot cocoa and milk toast (milk toast is only delicious if you have just been playing in the snow. Otherwise, it is questionable). At the end of a snow day, a warm bath was never so wonderful, and sleep was never so sound. Shoveling snow was not of our concern, nor was driving in the snow. 18 inches of beautiful white snow fell on Tuesday. It would of course have to be shoveled. Even 4 wheel drive can not rival that much snow. But, there was an air of childhood magic about it. There was just soooo much snow, a person couldn't help but stop and admire the beauty of it. Evergreen boughs yielding to the weight drew pictures in the ground snow that had risen up to meet them. All the world was eerily silent and for a moment the driveway really didn't matter. I had an overwhelming urge to build a snowman. I calculated that using the driveway snow for construction material would considerably reduce the shoveling necessary. The sun had grown weary, the gentle humm of innumerable snowblowers sang in the background, and I built a snowman.

Can't it just snow in the mountains?

So, we need the snow. And, indeed this has been a very strange winter. warm. dry. sunny. My pansies never actually stopped blooming. I still had broccoli in January, and during the drier weeks of winter, I could clearly see that some perennials never quite went dormant. The snow has come in waves. Either several feet for several days or nothing for several weeks. This is not acceptable to me. I expect to shovel a bit of snow at least once a week throughout the winter months. I consider it a grand opportunity for exercise, sunshine, and fresh air. But when the sky opens up and deposits dump truck loads of snow in my driveway all at once, it is frankly more than I can handle. We just had a huge multi-day snowstorm. Day 1) "The sun will come out and melt that snow tomorrow. I'm sure of it." Day 2) "More snow? oh great, I should have shoveled yesterday. I will shovel when it stops snowing all together." Day 3) "Still snowing? You can't be serious." Day 4) "Sure, now the sun comes out. How am I ever going to shovel all of this snow?" After three days of snow, my driveway has two deep icy trenches all the way up the center where I pulled in and out of the driveway. The plow has deposited all the snow from my entire street at the end of my driveway which has made it completely impossible to leave my house by car, and the mailman is on strike until he can reach my mailbox without getting out of his truck. Several times today I walked outside and examined the scene. I sized up the job and then returned to the indoors for another warm cup of coffee. I decided two winters ago that I had no interest in owning a snowblower. "I am young and strong. I don't have a bad back or bad knees or a good excuse." I still subscribe to this train of thought, but Ugh!

Prozac in a vase

I am rather enjoying the lovely bouquet of yellow daisies and rich green ferns on my kitchen counter. I smile every time I walk into the kitchen. During the fruitful months of summer and early fall, there were always flowers from our garden in that vase. . .and the one in the bathroom. . .and the one in the living room. . .and, well you get the idea. I realize that flowers are the principle difference indoors between summer and winter. I hate to purchase flowers from the grocery store. They are shipped to the cold and frigid state of Utah from places like California, Mexico, and even Brazil (uh, totally not sustainable). They are pumped full of fertilizer and pesticides and preservatives. It really is a purchase, I can't justify. I can justify the occasional apple from California, but the flowers? Well, it just seems selfish. Yet, I longed for those bright yellow daisies on my kitchen counter. So, I broke down. I chose flowers that have a long 'cut flower' life, so I could stretch the joy out as long as possible. And, It is absolutely fascinating how that one little vase of flowers lifts my spirits over and over and over again. Not sustainable, but totally worth it.