It’s a Snow Day!
Growing up in Manitoba we always had snow days but never here in Invermere. Today was the day! All schools were closed and I was going to treat myself by allowing myself all the privileges the children get. Even if it was just for a short while.
This past week we have had an unreal amount of snow accumulate at our place. About 4 feet of snow. It has been a tough week trying to keep up on snow removal. We’ve had to be up at 5 am to ensure the driveway and parking lot were plowed so we could be open by 8 am. We had to shovel walkways out to the horses and chickens and shovel off the sidewalks, dog areas and deck sometimes 4 times a day. Our roof has over 3 feet of snow on it!
Today school was cancelled and it finally stopped snowing. I was thrilled! Since I had to be home to work today as it’s a very busy long weekend with many people driving out from Alberta to hit the slopes I wanted to take the time to enjoy the snow just as I did as a child. After spending a week doing back breaking work shoveling I wanted to be one of the kids. I wanted to make snow angels and slide down the hills and make snow forts. So I did. I allowed myself to be one of the kids today. A snow day it was.
I taught the kids how to make a snow quinzhee. (a snow shelter made by gathering a large pile of snow and then hollowing it out) I learned to make these as a child. In high school we made these shelters in our Wilderness Survival Class and actually slept in them overnight. I remember the experience to this day so I wanted to share this with my children. It didn’t take long before it actually looked like a snow quinzhee. The kids and the dog also thought it was pretty neat. After that we went for a snowshoe and just enjoyed the beauty of the snow white landscape. It really was beautiful.
The sun was finally shining and it felt wonderful to just be silly and creative. While snowshoeing we kept making bets on who would get drenched next as the air warmed up and the branches started to sag heavily with snow. One after another the branches sprang free of all the extra weight they were holding. To be honest I sort of felt the same. It felt wonderful to just let everything go and not have a care in the world even for just a short while. Often we just don’t take the time to do these things that truly make us happy. It was a fabulous morning and I’m glad we took advantage of it. We may not have been able to go skiing but we made our own fun. We had to. It may be another 20 years before we see another dump of snow this again.
