The starlings are swarming in the trees over the Snake River this December, and I’m wondering why they haven’t migrated. More importantly, where’s our snow? We did get maybe an inch or two last night, but the weatherman on TV was very non-committal about a white Christmas for south central Idaho this year. For some, this is great news. With no or little snow, driving is less hazardous, you don’t have to shovel the sidewalk, and moving anywhere outdoors is easier with flip flops than snow boots. Our ski resorts though, need snow and I for one, find the white, wispy stuff almost comforting. It feels as if weather-wise, all is as it should be.
Sometimes I’ve wondered, if in a hundred years, we’d call this time period we’re living in—the early 2000’s—the in-between time of climate change, when winters in Idaho were mild, but snow still happened most of the time. The full effects of a warming planet had not yet hit us. I think about this every time I read that NASA has issued another warning about our average global temperatures climbing.
But wet snow, the kind it seems we’re more likely to get this winter, is great for snowman-building. I found this out a few weeks ago when we had that 4-6 inch snowfall, enough for the grand-kids to play in. Then I bent over, hamstrings screaming, and tried rolling a syrupy little snowman ball along the ground. It was no easy task. The ball kept breaking apart because the snow was almost too wet.
“We’re making a snowman, huh Gan-ma?” my granddaughter Cora asked as she watched me push my snowball around the backyard leaving a ribbon of frozen green grass in its wake.
“Yep.” I said, breathing hard and thinking, the things we do for our grand-kids.
When my snowball was finally big enough for a respectable snowman belly, I took mitten handfuls of snow and tried to round out the torso. And Cora, despite being hobbled by her thick snowsuit, managed to kneel down and grab her own clump of snow to pat on Mr. Snowman’s tummy. Then we put some rocks on his lumpy face for eyes and a carrot became his nose. The finishing touch was a ratty old farm cap for the top of his head and a checkered scarf around his neck. Cora’s eyes shone when she saw the big snowball suddenly transformed into a man. The world for her was a magical place.
Later, I stood in the kitchen with a hot cup of coffee in my hands and watched out the window as Cora and her brother ran around and around our drippy snowman. They were laughing and throwing globs of snow at each other. Looking at this scene made me thankful we still had a world full of natural beauty that included, sometimes, a white winter. It may not always be like this. Wise men know. They watch the sky.
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