By Mitch Lee
It was a mid-February Saturday morning and the snowfall around our Limekiln Lake home had reached epic proportions.
Most 11-year-old children would have been perfectly happy to remain inside where it was warm and watch the Saturday cartoon line-up on television.
I was drinking my cocoa and watching Salty Sam’s Super Saturday as I waited for my hat and mittens to get out of the dryer.
Even though they laid on the red bricks of the wood stove hearth all night they were still a bit damp.
My dog Mutt was at my feet in anticipation of going out on an Arctic expedition.
I figured if I could get out by the time Sylvester and Tweety was over at 8:30ish I could be back in to warm up with a toasted cheese sandwich by 11 a.m. to catch Space Ghosts and Frankenstein Jr.
Two-and-a-half hours seemed ample time to push through chest-level snow and blowing winds to explore the woods on the back hill behind my house.
After bundling up and making sure my socks were tucked in properly and my snowpants were pulled down over my boots, Mutt and I made our way out on to the porch.
I climbed the wood pile on the porch and belly-flopped right into snow so deep it took my breath away.
As I tried to paddle my body to an upright position I could hear Mutt whining in the distance.
She searched for me in the deep snow, following the swishing sound of my snowpants.
When she broke through the snow to the small space where I had fallen, she tried to climb me as if we were both out in the middle of the lake and she was drowning.
I could see over the top of the snow, so I pushed forward and led the way.
We spent the better part of two hours making a winding trench from one side of our back yard to the edge of the wood line.
By the time we got to the woods we both felt we needed to rest so we hunkered down in the deep snow.
Mutt decided that standing on top of me was the best way to keep afloat.
I tried hard to breathe when she planted one paw squarely on my stomach.
Being an Arctic explorer was hard work. We made a short 50-yard exploration till we hit the creek, which we could hear but not see until the white snow underfoot turned silky grey in color.
Our trip back was a bit easier. Though we followed our matted snow path, each step dropped me almost up to my belt loops.
When we got back on the porch I tried to shake off all the tiny snowballs that had collected on my cuffs and mittens. Like a thousand pebbles they littered the large slate stones.
Once inside I pulled off my snow gear and Mutt chewed the accumulated snow from her paws. Mutt slept while I warmed my back and laid out my wet gear by the wood stove.
I could feel my cheeks burn as I watched Space Ghost on that epically snowy morning.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller,
lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com