A Snow Day is a Fun Day!

It’s up to you to make the most of it.

The weathermen were predicting 12-24 inches of snow over the next 24 hours, and Mother Nature didn’t disappoint us! The official tally after the event indicated 18 inches of snow on Valentine’s Day, and given the snow from the night before, local effects, and drifting – it was quite a bit!

Some of my fondest memories growing up revolve around waiting by the radio and listening for our school to be read off the list… “…West Irondequoit School District…” Today’s information rich environment makes the notification process much easier, but doesn’t diminish the excitement at the prospect of a snow day – for my kids, or for me!-)

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Work first, play after

First things first however… Growing up, the first rule of any Snow Day was – the driveway needs to be cleared, and then it’s ok to play. Back then we had an extra long driveway with the garage in the back and no power tools to help, but there were several of us kids each armed with a shovel to get the job done. Since a snow day meant lots of extra snow, it meant a lot of work as well, but on the plus side, being the ones to clear the snow meant we could pile it where we wanted it to go!

My current driveway is double wide, and fairly long – but I’ve got a 30 year old, 2 stage snow blower with a canopy that does a fairly good job clearing it. (as long as I periodically remember to feed it oil). On the down side, this particular day it conked out after 90% of the work was done – though I couldn’t complain too much as it started back up later in the day (so all is not woe for me).

Skiing is fun

Part of the fun of living in the burbs is that we enjoy a fairly substantial yard. Large enough to run a short Nordic loop around. My morning practice has been to put some laps in while all sweated up from working the snow clearing operations. (and it is work – shoveling if light, and blowing if heavy, and horsing the snow blower around and back up the graded driveway is an effort)

Some sections of the path had drifts over two feet deep, others had just a few inches of snow under foot. It was a good workout.

Ready to go by noon?!?

Between sleeping in late (because of the snow), clearing the driveway (because of the snow), and skiing (because of the snow), it was noon before I was showered, dressed, and ready for the rest of the day! Working out of my home office, this didn’t present much of a real problem, but the herd of kids running around did. Thankfully they headed outside before too long and I had some quiet to get some work done.

Round two

As the proverb states – “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”… so after clearing the new drifts from the driveway later in the afternoon (and thankfully the blower started up, making this a simple job) I joined the kids in the backyard for some snow fort building.

Their ingenious idea this winter is to line the swing set crow’s nest with snow – using the railing as the foundation. We have several of those “build a snow brick” molds, but with the cold, there wasn’t much packing going on.

After more than ten years of imparting my wisdom to the kids on snow building and seemingly being ignored, I found it encouraging that my daughter complained about the quality of snow bricks I was creating. :-)

In for a nice steak dinner

After returning inside, we had just a short while before enjoying a nice dinner as a family. (My wife and I had planned to head out to a local restraint (it being Valentine’s Day and all), but decided to stay home and avoid the roads completely) There was time to snuggle later and enjoy a nitecap. I can’t imagine a better ending to a great day.

You’re only as old as you feel, and I felt quite young

We didn’t have the right conditions to build a snow fort with an iced roof that you could stand on (like I remember from the winter of 1978), but we had all the makings of a great winter day: lots of snow and cold weather, closed schools, and no good reason to leave home. Say what you want, but I could go for one of those every year!