The sun poured through the window and warmed my arm as I sat at the kitchen table on a late February morning in 1977. Hovered over a bowl of Wheat Chex, I watched the melting snow drip from the icicles hanging from the eaves.
“Maybe I’m Amazed” was blaring from our poorly tuned AM radio as I spooned three heaping spoonfuls of sugar over the top of the cereal.
At my feet was my dog Mutt, waiting patiently for me to eat up so she could lap the sweet milk from the bottom of my bowl.
It had all the makings of a good day for an eleven year old to tromp around in the warm woods, and it wasn’t long before I was in my winter clothes and strapping on my snow shoes.
The wooden snowshoes were a pair of cast-offs that my father had re-webbed with rawhide leather.
Though a bit too large in height for me, they helped me stay on top of the soft, wet snow.
It wasn’t long before Mutt and I were shuffling up the heavily snow-covered hill behind our house.
Mutt had a hard time forging ahead to blaze our trail and soon lagged behind.
She tried to stay balanced on the packed shoe prints I left in my wake.
Every so often she would step on the tail of my shoe, almost tripping me up and into a face plant.
We flushed out a few birds as we slowly made our way to the top.
We came across a deer that stared at us for a while before getting spooked enough to bound out of sight into some evergreen trees.
I pulled off a mitten and bent down to scoop up a handful of the damp snow. It didn’t even feel cold to the touch and was perfect for sculpting.
Mutt found a stick to gnaw on and laid in the snow. I made a circle of small stacked snowballs, each with a different small animal sculpted on top.
Soon we were surrounded by an entire ring of sculptures.
I had produced so many that my hands were sore from the snow.
I tried to warm them by sticking all my fingers in my mouth, then sticking them under my armpits.
Mutt and I stepped back and admired the circle of art work.
I made one last snow tower in the center of the circle and placed Mutt’s discarded stick on top of it like a spire.
We stayed and listened to the silence of the woods for a bit before making our way back down the hillside, heading for home.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller,
lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com