Outsiders' Thoughts On Snow

A few months back, after we got our first big snow, Roxy (who you may recall is a VISTA working on the Writer's Project) sent out an e-mail asking us VISTAs for a little written reaction to the snow.  She's since created a wiki for the project, and included all the stories on one page: right here.  I contributed, of course, but the entries are anonymous.  If you decide to read through them (and you should, they're lovely) and you see one that you think MUST be mine, be sure to leave me a comment!  I will tell you this much.  I wrote about a specific incident rather than general observations.

Photo by Go Marlinton!

In Which A Turtle Is Constructed

I love snow.  Adore it.  Some people look forward to the Spring melt, and I'll get there, eventually, but in my world extreme weather (blizzards, strong winds, thunderstorms--especially thunderstorms) trump pretty sunny days.  I like my weather exciting. 

A couple weeks ago, we had some snow on the ground, which I've come to realize is a surprisingly rare thing here.  I guess it's how we're situated, surrounded by mountains, but we're almost always passed over when snow comes through.  Anyways, we had some snow, the roommates were out of town, and I had a house full of beasts, so I thought we'd take advantage of the conditions and build a snowman.  As it turned out, there wasn't enough snow for a proper human, so we made a snow turtle.

Can you see it?  Don't worry, you will.

We had (and still do have, come to think of it) about a million different varieties of carrots in the house for some reason, so they were used as decor.

Still can't see the turtle?  Here, how's this?

Summer was hiding from Vista between my legs the entire time I worked on this, and quickly realized that the decor was edible.

So its days were short-lived.  By the end of the next day, all the snow in the yard was melted, anyways.  Now we have acres of mud.  Yeck.

Oh, Sam was there, too.

(In related news, I'm writing this at my kitchen table across from Emily, who has just started quoting Oliver Twist at the weather report of snow--"Please sir, I want some more!")

Not Ready For Snow

Last week it was still pretty much summer, and then all of a sudden this week is got ridiculously cold.  I mean the two-comforters-on-the-bed, leggings-under-your-jeans kind of cold.  Yesterday I got word that Snowshoe had their first snowfall of the season.  Granted, it was just flurries and WAY up the mountain from where we are, but it still bodes ill.  Last year's first snowfall was two weeks later, and look how that winter turned out.

Don't get me wrong, I adore winter and especially snow, but it's OCTOBER, for pity's sake.  Let me enjoy the autumn for a little bit before I need to drag out the long underwear and down coat, huh?  Call back in a month of two, then I'll be ready for you.

It is pretty, I'll give it that.