Our lake at the farm stayed frozen well into spring I remember skating in April but one time our dog Suzuki chased some geese and broke through the ice! I grabbed an inner tube and tried to run out onto the ice but the ice was too thin! I ran to the other side of the lake where local fishermen kept their boats and rowed towards poor splashing Suzuki and bashing the ice with the oars. Just as I got to her she managed to climb out of the water onto the ice and skedadle home! Luckily I just happened to pick a boat that had a plug in it bc most of those stingy fishermen took the plugs out of their boats so no one else could use! We both lived to tell the tale! Love from Mamie
I have lived in Charlotte for the 46 years now. Even when my husband and I first moved here it seldom snowed, but I can't remember the last time we had a snow that stuck and blanketed everything.. One of my favorite winter memories was our first year. It started snowing in the evening and by midnight it was clear that there would be no school the next day. Being a teacher I was elated. My husband and I went outside at about 1:00 a.m. and just stood on the covered front porch of our apartment to marvel at the splendor and beauty of the newly fallen not yet spoiled by a single footprint.
As kids, our favorite outdoor skating was, oddly enough, on a cemetery pond near our neighborhood. We’d play lots of hockey there - our fingers freezing as we sat in snow piles to tie our skates! Western North Carolina reminds me of western Pennsylvania in lots of ways. We do cherish our childhood winter memories!
During 30 years, homesteading in Western Mass, I liked the way snow squeaked with each step at certain temps and sometimes faked me out with a convincingly sturdy surface, then collapsed under each boots and sunk me down--step, SINK, step SINK in syncopation. So neat to follow tracks--precise deer hooves, rabbits hopping, raccoons walking on their hands, tiny mouse paw prints, mink slides into the pond, and...are those huge wolf prints? (Oh, that's my dog. ) Snow Drama--once a bulldozer was required to open our road (luckily my boyfriend of the time was the local excavation contractor). When snow turned to ice, the breathless inevitability of sliding backward down a steep hill, my truck and 18 foot stock trailer threatening to jack knife. Or, in what was otherwise a trusty 4WD Scout, sliding forward, then sideways, then in slow, white-knuckled circles toward a busy intersection. On the light side, when snow was up to the window sills, our dogs had to dig down to their dog door, creating what looked like an igloo attached to the house.
Our lake at the farm stayed frozen well into spring I remember skating in April but one time our dog Suzuki chased some geese and broke through the ice! I grabbed an inner tube and tried to run out onto the ice but the ice was too thin! I ran to the other side of the lake where local fishermen kept their boats and rowed towards poor splashing Suzuki and bashing the ice with the oars. Just as I got to her she managed to climb out of the water onto the ice and skedadle home! Luckily I just happened to pick a boat that had a plug in it bc most of those stingy fishermen took the plugs out of their boats so no one else could use! We both lived to tell the tale! Love from Mamie
I have lived in Charlotte for the 46 years now. Even when my husband and I first moved here it seldom snowed, but I can't remember the last time we had a snow that stuck and blanketed everything.. One of my favorite winter memories was our first year. It started snowing in the evening and by midnight it was clear that there would be no school the next day. Being a teacher I was elated. My husband and I went outside at about 1:00 a.m. and just stood on the covered front porch of our apartment to marvel at the splendor and beauty of the newly fallen not yet spoiled by a single footprint.
As kids, our favorite outdoor skating was, oddly enough, on a cemetery pond near our neighborhood. We’d play lots of hockey there - our fingers freezing as we sat in snow piles to tie our skates! Western North Carolina reminds me of western Pennsylvania in lots of ways. We do cherish our childhood winter memories!
I find this such a beautiful description of the mix of loss and joy so many of us are experiencing in this moment of climate precarity. Thank you!
During 30 years, homesteading in Western Mass, I liked the way snow squeaked with each step at certain temps and sometimes faked me out with a convincingly sturdy surface, then collapsed under each boots and sunk me down--step, SINK, step SINK in syncopation. So neat to follow tracks--precise deer hooves, rabbits hopping, raccoons walking on their hands, tiny mouse paw prints, mink slides into the pond, and...are those huge wolf prints? (Oh, that's my dog. ) Snow Drama--once a bulldozer was required to open our road (luckily my boyfriend of the time was the local excavation contractor). When snow turned to ice, the breathless inevitability of sliding backward down a steep hill, my truck and 18 foot stock trailer threatening to jack knife. Or, in what was otherwise a trusty 4WD Scout, sliding forward, then sideways, then in slow, white-knuckled circles toward a busy intersection. On the light side, when snow was up to the window sills, our dogs had to dig down to their dog door, creating what looked like an igloo attached to the house.