Mowing the Snow

I think that we have had significant snow, and a snow day, every December, during the single digit days, since arriving here a little over two years ago. This year was no exception, though it held out until the last possible day. Even at 6:00 AM this morning, there were no flakes coming down, and Alden awoke sometime after 8:30 saying, with disappointment, “I guess there isn’t a snow day today.” [he did not know what time it was or realize that if it had been a school day, we’d have been heading out the door at that moment]. In spite of the non-snowy conditions, school had already been called off by the time I checked a little after 6:00, in anticipation of the big storm coming.

I had to go to work to teach my morning class (the university closed at noon), and by the time I came home, it was coming down something fierce.

Ray and Alden had been worrying that the snow was never going to come; so, they are now truly relieved as well as excited.

No fancy snow pictures, just this one, Ray mowing, yes, mowing the lawn (already snowy from the weekend’s light dusting of snow) in an effort to make a smooth snowboard/sled run down the hill.

In what must be some sort of clever psychological marketing plan, today’s mail brought the 2010 Fedco catalog. So, as we sit here, snow falling down around us, the light fading in what seems like the middle of the afternoon, cozy with the fire in the woodstove,

and look ahead to the long winter (though we don’t look forward with any dread, just eager anticipation for the ski season, and curiosity about just how Milo will do on skis this year) we can also look even further ahead, to next year’s planting season, and begin dreaming about what we hope to grow and what seeds we’ll order this year.

[Ijust went back and did some checking, to confirm that we did indeed have snow days in early December each year, and while I did not post about the December 2008 one, I do mention it here.]