One of my favorite songs is, “Dashing Through the Snow“! What a delightful white wonderland snow creates for us to play in. Don’t stay inside and miss it, an everchanging painting outside. I love winters with snow through each day. Magical, cold hard water on the lakes, and soft flakey water falling from the sky. A quiet and majestic coating on top of everything.
Winter moisture is so very therapeutic to our planet. Cold precipitation gives us clean water replenished, and makes the insects decrease the following spring. Yay!
You can see that this love of the Inland Norwest is introduced at an early age. We start by catching snowflakes on our tongues, and graduate to walking and eating handfuls of snow. Here is one of our grandkids learning from Grandpa not to eat dirty snow.
FYI-Here is the definition of toboggan |təˈbäɡən|
noun
a long narrow sled used for the sport of coasting downhill over snow or ice. It typically is made of a lightweight board that is curved upward and backward at the front.
toboggan
verb [ no obj. ] (usu. go tobogganing)
slide downhill over snow on a toboggan: my kids love to go tobogganing in the park before Christmas dinner | we tobogganed down a steep hill nearby.
DERIVATIVES
tobogganer |təˈbäɡ(ə)nər| noun.
tobogganist |-nist| noun
ORIGIN
early 19th cent.: from Canadian French tabaganne, from Micmac topaĝan ‘sled.’ Isn’t is amazing what you can learn from books?
I still think sliding down a hill is one of the very finest things you can do in your life. Pete and I, both, plan to ski till we die because it is a truly real natural high. As I age, the winter activities get less radical, like, I tend to be much more careful on a runner sled, toboggan, or any kind of ski. I actually check out the route before I go because it is nice to be sure you will avoid where your car is parked. Sorry, it is a family joke.
Icicles are nature’s chemistry wonders in action. I looked to my right as we walked out of the church today. Sunlight sparkling through perfect icicles right there was a surprise. They were shimmering all over and looked as clear as glass. Visions of children’s swords and popsicle memories abound. Here is a great children’s craft to 
When I got a little closer the glass-like beauty intrigued me to the point that I wanted to photograph it from different angles. It is so amazing that the cold fluffy stuff melts and drips, then creates a different rock-hard form as it travels down. Soft and blowing fluff, transforming to water liquid drops, hardening to rock-hard, and finally melting into liquid drops again. Water has an eternal journey to the oceans.
As I changed positions I also noticed the brilliant blue sky in the background. I simply crouched down to allow inclusion of that beautiful blue sky. A gorgeous shot appeared proving beyond a doubt that winter is a magical time of year. If I can keep my eyes open, I can discover all the beauty in the little miracles outside. This looks like a wonderful painting to me.
The first clue in this typical slide-off is the presence of multiple yellow signs. A clear right turn arrow followed by three separate little yellow arrowheads pointing to the right. But, you can see that this driver simply assumed that those signs did not apply to him or her. Making no adjustments in their driving to compensate for the road conditions, they drive straight through the bank of snow in front of them. Yellow caution signs apply to everyone.
Winter will teach you to use common sense, it is a requirement. Every year winter is cold, with snow and ice and we are required to get ready for it. Snow tires, chains, shovels, snowblowers, de-icer, antifreeze, blanket, shovel, emergency kits, and even a chain saw sometimes. Some cars get around better than others in the winter. Count the Subaru’s in the local parking lot.
Good luck Val, really! Hold still you two. Ha Ha!
You can tell that these two woofers love to go outside and play in the snow. Max runs everywhere in a cloud of white powder smelling all the deer tracks in the snow. He makes the whole perimeter circuit in a flash.
Hurley prefers to roll in the snow and jump up and down in front of me, as he tries to cool off from his heavy sheepdog-type curly coat.
A snowshoeing peaceful walk. We have had some usage of our snowshoes here in Elk WA and I am loving it. Max and I went for a snowshoe break after lunch and found some really beautiful views. I can’t believe how he loves to jump and run in the snow with endless energy, to say the least.
I usually sit here and rest but I could not mess up this perfect layer of snow on this old log across the track. The MapMyWalk app says I only went 1.13 miles in an hour and 20 minutes. But, my legs feel like I have been marching with Nazi army soldiers for miles. You know what I mean, lifting my legs up high for each step. Either that or I was doing lunges repeatedly.
When I walked out on the deck this morning I made a discovery. Icicles!
The end result is lots of icicles hanging from a sheet of snow. This is a great specimen of icicles. It almost looks like science fiction, some creepy-crawly rows of fingers reaching over the edge of our roof. Icicles are great reflectors of light, we can easily see where the inventor of those Christmas icicle lights got the idea from.
On Sunday we were able to walk near our house to the “crooked tree”. What a destination huh? It is about a mile and a half walk for us, which is a good stretch of the over-skied and boarded legs from the day before. Crunch, crunch, crunch. However, it must be about ten miles for the dogs running in circles around us as we go. BTW, it is amazing what nature will overcome?
Mystery Solved
