Winter Roundup

The calendar says spring, but outside my window now, snowflakes are sifting gently but steadily down from the sky.

It's been a strange winter, with March making up for the almost snow-free February with interest.

C put the skis and snowshoes away in the barn loft a month ago, and at least two feet of the white stuff has fallen since then.


Spring in Maine may be a state of mind and not an actual season, but the birds have gotten into the spirit—woodpeckers drumming, chickadees whistling "hey sweetie," and the little tufted titmouse tweeting "chiva-chiva."

Meanwhile, I've been sequestered indoors, doggedly working toward my self-imposed deadline of completing my book by April 1.

I don't think I'll make it, but I'll be close. Closer if I could just learn to say "no" to all kinds of things that sound a lot more fun than reading tomes on environmental law and geology.

While I have avoided most other writing projects—including this blog—I haven't only been writing the book.

There's been skiing and snowshoeing and hiking and walking up and down the muddy driveway, depending on the weather.



And twice I've gone "up north" on birding expeditions to see crossbills, which are pretty much like coming across parrots in the wilds of Maine. So beautiful (and they like to hang out on the road shoulders, nibbling gravel).

The boys have had A LOT of snow days, like double-digits snow days.

Sometimes I'm fun snow day mom, who plays games and watches movies and makes treats like snow ice cream or German apple pan cake.


Sometimes I'm "go outside and then read quietly in your room while I get some work done. No Minecraft" mom.




It is, no doubt, premature to call this a winter "roundup" while snow drifts around outside my window—kind of like C putting away the winter gear in mid-February. Stay tuned for "winter addendum."

Snow Day

When I saw the weather forecast for Tuesday, I was pretty sure the school(s) would call a snow day. Instead of railing against yet another break in my already shaky December schedule, I decided to embrace it the way I used to when I had an outside-of-the-house job and a snow day could mean a day off for everyone. While grocery shopping Monday, I laid in supplies of cookie ingredients and construction paper. I made plans for puzzles, games, movies, and projects. I visualized every snow day for the last 11 years happening all in one day. While things didn't quite transpire the way I'd envisioned, we had a pretty good—and productive—day.

While the kids would once have raced outside to play in the snow first thing, they are now of an age where they would rather sleep in late (M) or get on the computer first thing. I decided to ignore E and Z's screening and get busy on a project of my own, the supplies for which I bought last holiday season: festive placemats for everyday use during the Christmas season.

Even though our table is well-loved, I like to try to protect what's left of its finish with placemats or tablecloths. I also like to have a nice, attractive table to sit at (this condition does not last long, with homework, bills, mail, crumbs, and various other messes piling up as quickly as I can clear it). I've been so pleased with the bright, festive, machine-washable placemats I made last year that I decided to replicate them, down to the rickrack, in festive reds and greens. So far, I'm quite pleased.

When I finished my project, I rousted two boys off their screens and outside onto their skis, which was a much easier effort than I expected (could it be that they actually like this new activity and might even go out and do it voluntarily some day? Dare I hope?). The anticipated rain had not yet begun, and we had an inch or so of fresh fluff on top of Sunday's snow—not quite enough to shield our skis from gravel in the driveway, so we went off-road into our neighbor's field and then around one loop of our trail in the woods. Z, after laboriously climbing one narrow hill through the trees turned around and skied down it, then repeated the whole process two more times. Fun!

Back inside, we worked on some holiday projects—E made a paper chain to go around part of the living room (to extend one he had begun last week) and Z and I made Scandinavian-style woven paper hearts. Unfortunately I picked a design with five strips, rather than two or three, so the weaving was hard-going, but Z and I each managed to finish one each. The cool thing about both of these projects? They were the boys' ideas, no coercion necessary!

In the afternoon, we settled in for a movie during which I worked on making Christmas ornaments.

We didn't get out a puzzle or play games or go sledding, and I didn't get around to mixing cookie dough until the evening, while I was reheating a dinner of leftovers (that's my idea of cooking—mix cookie dough rather than dinner). But I did get a batch of saffron St. Lucia Day buns made for Wednesday's breakfast (and I managed to not burn them for the first time ever). All-in-all, a pretty good snow day.

Undaunted

I have never successfully gotten my whole family on skis. Like never having organized a family bike trip, I've been too daunted by the expense and the coordination required to have five pairs of functioning skis on five sets of feet (I'm talking cross-country skiing here—downhill would be in a whole other realm of expense and getting up really early to drive really far away).



I did try once, rounding up enough second-hand and hand-me-down skis and boots to outfit all three kids, ages 7, 3, and 3 at the time. I wrote about the disastrous event in my zine in an essay called "Easily Discouraged":

After breakfast Saturday morning, I get everyone dressed and ready to go out skiing. This process takes nearly two hours, most of which I spend convincing them they want to go outside and looking for the size 9 boots, which M suddenly “finds” behind the curtain in his bedroom just as I give up and start to walk out the door. I stuff my pockets with cookies to fend off any low blood sugar-related meltdowns, pile skis and boots and poles into the sled and we trek up our driveway to the neighbor’s field, a large expanse of gently- sloping white.  

I help Mi fit his boots into his ski bindings, strap his poles over his gloves and walk him a few steps into the field. I go back to the sled and start buckling a pair of skis over Z’s snow boots when one of M’s skis detaches. I finish Z, lead him to the snow and re-attach M’s ski. I return to the sled and start to put the size 9 ski boots on E when Z falls down and M’s ski falls off again. I get E into his boots and skis, help him to the snow, right Z and attach M’s ski again. I try to help E and Z move across the crusty snow and M makes his way toward a small hill he wants ski down. None of them is heavy enough to break through the crust on the snow. M reaches the hill and I try to describe herring-boning from 30 feet away where I’m trying to keep E and Z vertical. The snow is too slippery and M keeps sliding backward. I make my way over to him and show him how to side-step up. He makes it to the top of the hill and starts down, in a fast, beautiful run, until he leans backward slightly, starts to lose his balance, overcompensates and falls flat on his face. 

By now everyone is crying, except me (although I’d like to). I try cheering M up, telling him what a great run it was, but he is unconvinced. We take off skis, load them in the sled and head for home. I prop six little skis and six little poles next to the front door where they will sit, unused, until late April when I finally put them away in the basement. 

And I never, ever tried to get my kids on skis again. I go cross-country skiing with friends maybe once or twice a year. M has since taken up snowboarding—tagging along with friends whose mothers are less easily discouraged (and more enthusiastic about getting up really early to drive really far away) but when I've (half-heartedly) suggested ski or snowboard lessons to E and Z, they both have shown a decided lack of interest which I've felt a lack of interest in trying to surmount. For the interim, we've stuck to snow shoes.



But this year I decided to overcome the enthusiasm gap and get the twins outfitted for cross-country skiing. We picked up skis last weekend through an organization in our area offers season-long cross-country ski/boot/pole leasing for a reasonable price and I'll be signing them up for a four-day ski clinic at a local nature center in January.



In the meantime, after our first measurable snowfall Saturday, we all strapped on our skis and hit the slopes, er, driveway, and that same neighbor's field.



We had a few setbacks, a few falls, a few pairs of tangled skis and legs, but both boys got the hang of it pretty quick and—shh don't tell them I said this—I think they even had fun!

Snow Days

Out of the last nine weekdays, all three kids have only gone to school two.

Three days all three of them had snow days; two days either one or two of them did; and the other two days, they had early release.

Needless to say, I haven't been getting much done these last couple of weeks.

(And next week is school vacation!!)

I should, in theory, I suppose, be able to work when they're around, but I can't. Or not much anyway.

It's "Hey, mom…" every few minutes.



And even when they're not bothering me, I feel obligated to engage them in other activities so they don't turn into total screen zombies (which, I admit, is a serious danger right about now).



And then there is the bickering, and the need to feed them occasionally.



So I heave them outside on a regular basis (and myself, too, because a daily dose of light—no matter how dim—and fresh air and body movement is essential to surviving February).


Last week's Artist's Way question was: what is your favorite creative block? That was an easy one: my kids. What to do about it (which the book doesn't ask, not yet anyway) is another question.

This is the best I could do for a Valentine heart this year. Can you see two of them?

In addition to outside time and puzzles and games and movies we all watch together (which feel a little healthier than each to his own screen), I've tried to engage them in a little creativity, both to keep them busy and to help me in my creative recovery.



One of The Artist's Way activities is to create an image file where you store pictures of things you want or that represent who you want to be or what you want to do. I figured, why create a file when you can make a collage? And E and I spent a happy evening cutting up old magazines and gluing the pictures onto big paper. My collage, necessarily tending toward nature and birds and travel, because that's what kind of magazines we had available to us, tells a little story about what kind of life I'd like to lead.



"Make art" is a phrase that keeps popping up in my mind—and in my Morning Pages—when I think about how I want to spend my time, and I was able to get all three boys engaged in a little painting project with me (when paint and canvas are involved, I can usually even get M to play along). I'd had an idea for monochromatic landscape paintings, based on a project E and Z had brought home from art class a while ago, and gave each of them a cool paint color, plus white, and had them draw a series of mountain lines.



We started with white with just a little color mixed in for the sky, and then added more color as we moved toward the bottom of the painting (foreground). I suppose I should have talked about value a little more, and maybe it would have made sense to pre-mix the different values to ensure there was enough of a range, but, well, I'm not an artist or art teacher, so we bungle along as best we can. I was left with black (though I thought sure M or Z would pick it) and it was surprisingly a lot more interesting to paint with than I expected.



Z had the idea of adding snow to his—using a mostly-empty squeeze bottle of acrylic paint, and I thought it was a pretty good idea (especially considering the blizzard swirling around outside at the time). E suggested I use an old toothbrush to flick paint on my canvas to make the snow (a trick he learned from a former art teacher), so it was a fun, collaborative project and we all learned from each other.

Another aspect of The Artist's Way is to take a weekly "Artist's Date" all by yourself. I had planned  an extended Artist Date for last Friday, thinking I'd head down to the coast, but I wanted to get some work done at home while the kids were actually at school, and it was brutally cold and windy (not a nice beach day, in other words), so instead I took a shortened date to a nearby not-quite-coastal (but on a tidal river so it feels like it is) town, where I sat in my warm car with hot tea and ate  sticky bun while watching ducks on the river and writing in my journal. I also went to a book store, which I seem to do every Artist Date, but was very good and didn't buy anything.

Wild Wednesday ~ Snow and Christmas Bird Count

We're having one of those winters—snow, rain, snow, rain, snow.

The kind where going outside is like stepping onto an ice skating rink and the wet, heavy snow-rain-ice comes thundering off of the metal roof like a freight train in the middle of the night.

It's the sort of winter where you just have to get outside while the getting's good,

And it's not that good that often.

But one day last week, after some snow-rain-snow, we had a brief winter-wonderland window,

Just enough to make everything frosty and magical (but not enough to require skis or snowshoes). 

It's mostly turned to slush by now, but it's that kind of winter.

In other wild news, last Saturday we participated in the Christmas Bird Count again,  a day where we have to do nothing but drive around a set route, looking for birds, which is a lot more fun than it sounds.

We saw a good number of birds—lots of the usual suspects, like blue jays and crows, starlings and chickadees. The most exciting sightings were two bald eagles in a  tree (one pictured above), a pileated woodpecker right next to the car (below), and a red-bellied woodpecker, a life first for both C and me (of which I did not get a picture).



To learn more about the Christmas Bird Count, go here. If you're at all into birds, I encourage you to look into joining a count in your area next winter. It's lots of fun and there are always opportunities for novices to hook up with more experienced birders. To see more about our bird count day, check out C's vlog post about the bird count here.

Wild Wednesday ~ Snow Day

Monday we had a snow day.



It wasn't the first snow of the season, but it was the first real snow-snow, where enough piled up for tracks and sledding and canceling school.



It's been a long while since the boys would get up and run outside, snowsuits over pajamas, to play first thing in the morning.



Their electronic devices sing a sweeter siren song than snow and I had to cajole and bribe them to go out and stay out.



One of them, mad at me because I didn't want to drive in the snow to take him to his friend's house, never went out at all.



No one wanted to accompany me on a walk through the woods, so I went on my own. Saw a few tracks—squirrel (first photo) and these that I'm not sure who they belong to. The diagonal arrangement makes me kind of thing weasel family, but they're so close together. Thoughts?



Our river has partially frozen over already, which didn't happen at all last winter. I'll take that as a good sign of a white Christmas and winter to come.