Snow-Dragons

When we first moved to Maryland one of my most common questions to people was "Do we get snow in the winter?" I would get a range of answers to "Yes, feet of snow!" to "barley any snow." Last winter we went pretty much the entire season without a true snowfall (or what this Colorado-native would call a snowfall). So I will probably still be dreaming of a white Christmas, because it looks Mother Nature isn't going to provide one. I know Colorado just received some snow, but before you start saying "if you wanted a white Christmas move back to Colorado" (ha, caught you didn't I). I will kindly remind you that I had plenty of snow-less Christmases in Colorado. Especially growing up in the deserty-Grand Valley. But when it did snow, no matter how little we always made the best of it.

When we were little we would go sledding on the "sledding hill." I would usually be too scared to actually go down the hill until my brother, brother or cousin offered to ride down with me... and even then I was a little scared. But eventually the fear wore off and I would gleefully ride to the bottom and then hike back up the hill, over and over until finally I was either too tired or too cold to make the trip again. Of course as the years went by the sledding hill became smaller and smaller and soon we moved on to hooking up the sledding disk behind the four-wheeler. One of us would drive and the other would hold on for dear-life as we bounced over the ruts in the field. We would have snowball fights, make snow-angels and generally live in the cold, wet snow whenever it visited our farm. Eventually our Carhart overalls and coats, and gloves would become soaked completely through and we would trudge back into the house and line up the coats, gloves and boots in front of the heater to dry.

Because snow was a fleeting occurrence on the farm it always held a certain amount of magic for me. There is something almost mystical about walking out into a snowy night. It is so quiet and peaceful, leaving you with the feeling that just about anything could happen. When I was a little girl my Mother would tell me stories of Snow-Dragons as we walked along the roads. She would point to the hills of snow that built up in the fields and say "Look! There is a snow-dragon sleeping, we have to be very quiet so we don't wake him!" Of course this thrilled and terrified me as a child; I was always on the lookout for sleeping snow-dragons. Even as an adult I find myself spotting them in the snowy landscapes. Maybe we will be blessed with snow this year and I will spot some Maryland snow-dragons.