Snow
Day!! The snow began yesterday
morning about 6:30 a.m. and steadily fell until mid-afternoon. The meteorologists have gotten really accurate
at forecasting where and when the weather will happen so most school systems,
to heed the forecast, cancelled school way ahead of time. When the snow finally stopped, over two
inches had accumulated. Then the
temperature dipped to zero last night.
These back roads probably won’t thaw until Saturday when the temperature
rises and there’s rain to wash away any leftover snow. I love snow days…not so much because a
snow day means a day out of school (although it doesn’t hurt), but because a snow day brings back such
wonderful memories of snow days when I was a kid growing up on the farm.
You
and your family now live in the house where I grew up and by the way, I am so
thankful for that. You all live
all over that house, kept comfortably warm by a central heating system;
however, in the wintertime when I was growing up, we literally lived in three
rooms down stairs: the kitchen, the “den,” and the bedroom that I shared with
my two brothers because those were the only rooms we could easily heat. When it was time to take a bath, we would heat the little
bathroom at the end of the hall. The
bathroom was first heated by an electric space heater and later by gas
heat. It was either freezing or a
hundred degrees in that little bathroom!
When the temperature dropped below freezing, Daddy would turn off the
water outside at the well so the pipes wouldn’t freeze and burst. Of course that meant no baths, no
toilet – sounds terrible, but it wasn’t.
We managed.
We also had a “living room” in the front
of the house, which was heated for “company” or for me to practice the
piano. On super cold days, that
room never got warm enough to keep my fingers from freezing while I tried to
learn the piano pieces that my music teacher had assigned; therefore, I dreaded
practicing. If I had had a piano
in a consistently warm room of the house (there wasn’t one), I probably would be a much better
pianist today! Ha.
The
“den” was the room of the house where we lived most of the time. That is the very same room that your
family uses as a dining room.
However, when I was growing up, my parents’ bed was in that room, the TV
was in that room, and the wood-burning stove that heated all three rooms sat in
the middle of the floor. There was
a sofa with a coffee table in front of it, plus Daddy’s rocking chair where he
sat and read the newspaper every night after supper. We didn’t feel crowded – we were cozy!
You
might think that I hated being cooped up like that on a snow day or two or
three, but those were magic days.
Daddy traveled for Dobson-Hicks Seed Company at that time and on snow
days, he couldn’t travel so he stayed at home too. As soon as Mama would let us, we did exactly what you do…we bundled
up in warm clothes and went out to play in the snow. We stayed out too- until the cold seeped in through our boots and gloves and we
had to give it up. After we thawed
out, we would set up a card table in the middle of the den – yes, we made room
somehow – and played Monopoly or Rook until well after our usual bedtime. Mama would pop popcorn in the middle of
the afternoon, which was a rare treat (normally, she didn’t believe in snacking
before supper). But the most
special treat of all was “snow cream.”
That was in the day before we were warned about all the harmful stuff
that might be floating around in the atmosphere and polluting all of nature
like rain and snow! Daddy would take a large pan and go out to the cars (no
chance of yellow snow on the roof of the car) and dip spoonfuls to bring back
in the house. Then Mama had to
work fast before the snow began to melt.
She would mix in a little milk, add some vanilla, and viola! An
amazingly delicious treat that we could have only on a rare snow day. The snow had to be fresh too. Day old snow was icy and wasn’t nearly
as tasty.
Of
course living on a farm meant that the animals had to be fed and watered, even
on snow days. The sheep caused the
most problems. Cows know when to
come to the barn to be fed. Not so sheep.
On the coldest night of the year when they could have come to the barn on
their own to get fed and snuggle down in a warm bed of straw, the entire flock
of sheep would be huddled in the back field, and someone would have to go herd
them to the barn. The ewes would
often choose the coldest night of the year to lamb. On many cold nights, Daddy would bring a lamb to the house
that he had found lying out in the field where a ewe had given birth. The lamb would appear dead because it
was so cold, but Daddy put it in a box behind that warm heater in the den, and
sometime in the night, that half-dead lamb would begin to bleat. Daddy filled a coke bottle with warm
milk, put a black nipple on it, and forced that lamb to take a few sips. Eventually, the lamb got the idea and
sucked that bottle dry before Daddy took it back to the barn to find its
mama.
Today
is snow day number two and because the temperature is still in the teens, the
back roads will not thaw and I’m guessing that we’ll have another snow day
tomorrow. Every room in my house
is toasty. This morning, as usual,
I took a shower without giving a thought to whether or not I would have warm running
water. Life is good. But there’s a part of me that wishes
that I could have one more snow day in that old house with my parents and my brothers
–build one more snowman in the front yard - play one more game of Monopoly in
front of the heater – eat one more bowl of Mama’s snow cream. I would even love to hike to the back of the farm just to
“get the sheep.”
Yes
Emily, I have cherished memories of other snow days. Right now you and your family are making memories. Enjoy making them. Treasure them. Someday you will remember them and know
that you are blessed.
Love,
BB
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