South Texas Snow dribble

This is probably as thick as the snow will get here this year. A few dribbles of ice on the trampoline. But for seven year old Michael, it is the best day of his life. Miley has found a couple of wet logs stashed underneath the bushes for an end of year fire, and pulled out some items from the ski supplies that will keep him just warm enough to eat icicles, jump on a frothy trampoline, and slide down a somewhat pathetic hill in our granola bowl. Life is good.

Piles and piles of snow surrounded our Kentucky home like dunes in a desert, but the negative temperatures sharply reminded everyone in the tiny town of Kelat, we were in record-breaking snow storm that would not let up for well over a month. I think the number was 28. Twenty eight inches of snow was enough to keep us out of school for weeks after our Christmas break. It was so many weeks that the school system announced there would be no makeup days as that many makeup days were as formidable as the snowstorm itself.

Benjamin and I would sit by the radio with our fingers crossed every morning, hoping that it was yet another "snow day", and when the announcer named our county, we whooped for joy and got all our snow clothes on. We would get our metal bowls and run to the top of our sled hill, letting the wind and snow blow around us as we skidded down that embankment for hours. So many hours that Lady; our labrador; got arthritis from frozen paws and loyalty to her kids that only a good dog knows.

Looking back, there were so many details that my mom alone bore. How did we get groceries? The roads undrivable, I do not even think mail was running. She was in the house alone with my little brother Joshua, and while we careened at speeds faster than humans should go in the open air, what was she doing? Was she poring over bills or fretting about laundry? We hung it outside on the laundry line, and snow meant days of drying time. Now, as a mother, I wonder more about the things that I was blissfully spared as a child. I wonder too about the people in northern states right now, sitting in the same snow I was in as a child. I always remembered hearing of people dying during those storms and wondered how. Looking back, I am a bit surprised we fared as well as we did.

So. I am weary with winter, yes, but so grateful to be this far south as winter dredges on and even the children are wondering when it will be over.