Winter Wonderland, Indeed!

Today Bandido and I really enjoyed our walk. It was 10 degrees warmer, blue sky was peeking through the clouds, no wind, and lovely big flakes of snow coming straight down. Lovely.

It reminded me of how much time we spent in the snow when I was growing up in Montana. Mother didn't drive so we walked to school, home again for lunch (actually noontime was the big meal of the day) and then back to school and home again in the afternoon. The temperatures were much lower than they ever get here in California but we dressed for it. Long stockings, wool snow pants, galoshes over our shoes, mittens strung through our coat sleeves with crocheted yarn strings, scarf over the head babushka style, long scarf around the chin and nose area, and a long scarf around the forehead. We were ready for cold. Often double mittens. Still I remember how much fun it was to walk and play along the way, often stopping in the park and making angels in the snow or playing a game of fox and geese or building a snow man.

After school we would go sledding on the hill outside our home or ice skating a few blocks away. I remember coming in with hands so cold you had to warm them up by putting them first under ice water and then gradually getting the water warmer so it wouldn't hurt so much. It amazes me how much we could endure in those Montana winters, but when you are skating or climbing the hill or running around a fox and geese circle you stay fairly warm. When Richard and I had our own children we would often draw a fox and geese circle at the beach in the winter (when it was deserted) and teach the children how we played in the snow--well, at least I, Richard grew up in Las Vegas so only knew snow when he went to BYU or over to Brianhead to ski.

This is the coldest winter we have had since I came to Lake Almanor--it may be a long winter.