Kim did the same a few yards from me, and Lonnie and Kirk down closer to the inlet. Chris upended an orange bucket and planted herself over the lens of the lake. As I sat there, past the point of pondering, past the point of prayers of gratitude for the immense beauty, past the consciousness of the stillness and serenity, my hand dipped down into the soft wet snow and I noticed that these were particularly perfect snow conditions. And so I planted the heel of my pole into the snow and scooped a handful of good wet snow; pressed it between my mittens, then bent over and pushed it through a virgin path until it grew to a considerable size. Kim lifted herself from her fruitless perch and began the same process. When her massive snowball was just right we both squatted and counted and…1…2…3…but could not heft the weighty orb onto the base. Believing that there is always a way, and unwilling to resort to asking for help from the men folk, we folded one of the camp chairs, leaned it up against the large snowman base, and rolled the mid section up the chair and into position. A third, then a fourth, and TA DA, we had ourselves a snowman. Being far from any known carrot, top hat, buttons or coal, Kim trudged in her snowshoes through the slushy edge of the pond and up to the hillside where a nice curly twigged tree obliged by donating her branches. I dug a cinnamon candy out of my down jacket and presently this appeared:
We were quite pleased. Lonnie thought we were neglectful of our
poles, and Kirk commented on the unconventional use of 4 sections instead of three, but we thought ourselves rather resourceful of our time and talents. We thought it could serve as a sort of
scarecrow for wild beasts who might come bother our supplies in the night. But on second glance, from the side, the
creation looked more like a pregnant innocent with pick-a-ninny hair, not
likely to scare anyone or anything.
By
the time we left she was leaning pretty heavy.
She may be down tomorrow. But
like I said to Lonnie as we mounted our snow machines and looked back over the
pond, the joy was in the creation.
(I wonder if that's what Michael, the archangel, said to God.)
(I wonder if that's what Michael, the archangel, said to God.)
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