~Charley~
A powerful winter storm came through yesterday and left the land of Texoma blanketed in white stuff that is normally not seen in such quantities in this neck of the woods. The impact was sufficient to call off school for the two days it was scheduled this week. Today instead of seeing the smiling faces of the kids at school, I'll be thinking about them and planning for our week upcoming.
Gus, the mini Aussie who lives here with us, wasn't sure about it in the beginning. With great hesitation he went out for his first official bathroom break of the day in the early morning 4 a.m. hours. He did his business and hurried right back in, not wanting to play in the darkness of Thursday morning. Later on, Gus went out with Mike as soon as daylight tried to arrive and that was all it took. He became enamored with snow and all the fun that running in it provides a nearly 8-month old puppy.
As a kid growing up on the farm back in south central Kansas, I was absolutely not a fan of winter weather. I never really found any joy in building a snowman, having a snowball fight, or traipsing down the lane to wait in the shivering temperatures for the school bus to pick us up each morning. My recollection of the farmhouses that we lived in were that they were freezing cold in winter. All of us kids had our bedrooms upstairs and there was little heat that rose up through the floor vents. At night when it was time to go to bed, you quickly dove under the icy covers and waited for your body heat to warm up the bed. Once in, you hated to have to get back out again.
Those days are long ago now.
A few years back I tried to change my attitude about cold temperatures and snowy weather. Since winter is on the calendar for the better part of 3 months as it takes its turn with the other 3 seasons, I felt like I was forfeiting a fourth of the year's enjoyment simply by my "I hate winter" attitude. It was a bitter pill to swallow, this embracing of a season that I really had so much disdain for. Yet I began to and somehow just by changing the way I looked at winter, I began to see some of its merits for the first time in my life. It's gotten better now, this relationship between myself and the 3-month stretch of time that many folks do enjoy. For that I am happy.
Yesterday, the 9-year old that I live with decided at the end of the afternoon that it was time to build a snowman. Mike came bounding into the house asking me if I would like to come out to play in the snow. My first reaction was that it was too dang cold and no I didn't. I could tell that he was disappointed but it didn't stop him from going out. A few seconds after the front door closed, I remembered a time back in Colorado when we had built a snowman together and the fun that it had provided two late 50-something people that Saturday afternoon. It took me a minute to get dressed warmly and out the door I went to join Mike in constructing our front yard snowman whose name was deemed "Charley".
It was cold!
It was fun!
Gus, the mini Aussie who lives here with us, wasn't sure about it in the beginning. With great hesitation he went out for his first official bathroom break of the day in the early morning 4 a.m. hours. He did his business and hurried right back in, not wanting to play in the darkness of Thursday morning. Later on, Gus went out with Mike as soon as daylight tried to arrive and that was all it took. He became enamored with snow and all the fun that running in it provides a nearly 8-month old puppy.
As a kid growing up on the farm back in south central Kansas, I was absolutely not a fan of winter weather. I never really found any joy in building a snowman, having a snowball fight, or traipsing down the lane to wait in the shivering temperatures for the school bus to pick us up each morning. My recollection of the farmhouses that we lived in were that they were freezing cold in winter. All of us kids had our bedrooms upstairs and there was little heat that rose up through the floor vents. At night when it was time to go to bed, you quickly dove under the icy covers and waited for your body heat to warm up the bed. Once in, you hated to have to get back out again.
Those days are long ago now.
A few years back I tried to change my attitude about cold temperatures and snowy weather. Since winter is on the calendar for the better part of 3 months as it takes its turn with the other 3 seasons, I felt like I was forfeiting a fourth of the year's enjoyment simply by my "I hate winter" attitude. It was a bitter pill to swallow, this embracing of a season that I really had so much disdain for. Yet I began to and somehow just by changing the way I looked at winter, I began to see some of its merits for the first time in my life. It's gotten better now, this relationship between myself and the 3-month stretch of time that many folks do enjoy. For that I am happy.
Yesterday, the 9-year old that I live with decided at the end of the afternoon that it was time to build a snowman. Mike came bounding into the house asking me if I would like to come out to play in the snow. My first reaction was that it was too dang cold and no I didn't. I could tell that he was disappointed but it didn't stop him from going out. A few seconds after the front door closed, I remembered a time back in Colorado when we had built a snowman together and the fun that it had provided two late 50-something people that Saturday afternoon. It took me a minute to get dressed warmly and out the door I went to join Mike in constructing our front yard snowman whose name was deemed "Charley".
It was cold!
It was fun!
It won't take long for poor Charley to go away and with a forecast high of 51 by late afternoon, he will be little more than a brightly colored clump of snow by day's end. Snowmen were never meant to last forever in the first place, but the memories of making them whether you are 6 or 60 do indeed endure the passage of time.
One thing remains certain.
You cannot put a price tag on that kind of remembrance.
Eleanore was made from a winter storm in February of 2013 back home in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was the first snowman I had ever made in my life.
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