You Know You're a Northerner When...

[Blooie]

All I can say is that it seemed a lot warmer when I grew up than it was once some genius decided he had to tell us about "wind chill factors"!

Okay, by popular demand (thanks, Banty, and LG for your unsolicited request) here is the story of the hill. LG, I think you've read this one before.

While we were growing up, our dad had a drinking problem. One blizzard filled South Dakota time stands out in my mind. It had snowed steadily for over a week, and the snow was deep and heavy. But that Saturday the clouds had finally given way to blue skies and thin sunshine. Dad put on his heavy outerwear and galoshes and headed out the door to shovel the sidewalks and the driveway. He came in to warm up and have a bite of lunch (with a couple of beers to wash it down) then told Ma he was heading back out to finish shoveling. But the walks and driveway were cleared....

My sister Linda and I were at that early stage of adolescence that caused the dreaded disease "Parental Embarassitis". We stared out of the picture window in horror as Dad began shoveling the YARD. Yes, the yard!! We pleaded with Ma to do something - Dad's drinking was no big secret to the neighborhood and we just knew that the entire world figured he was just "tittled" again and doing something stupidly alcohol fueled. We were mortified! Ma just continued mopping up the melted snow from Dad's boots and said nothing, but she couldn't quite hide her grin.

Dad continued shoving the front yard, filling his wheelbarrow and pushing it through the tracks he'd made around the house and into the back yard. Finally Linda and I just couldn't watch this humiliating performance for one more second. How would we ever face anybody again? Ma peeked out the kitchen window and said, "Well he's got to be getting pretty cold, but he's starting on the backyard now." Oh no!

Soon we heard him stomping the snow off his feet, but instead of coming inside the house he headed straight down into the basement. Curiosity overcame our humiliation as we watched him drag the garden hose (stored down there to prevent freezing) outside. He'd hooked it up to the washer faucet downstairs.

We ran to the dining room window and saw an enormous white mountain in the backyard, and words can't even begin to convey how huge this thing was. He started spraying this mountain with a mist of water. Then he used his hunting hatchet and cut deep steps into one side.

Humiliation be damned! Dad had made the best sledding hill in the free world, and all 5 of us hustled into boots and coats, grabbed cookie sheets, and headed out to enjoy what had taken him hours out in the cold to build. We hit the frigid air and stared up at this marvel in absolute awe. Dad wiped his nose with his sleeve and said, "Oh, no...me first!"

As cold and wet as he was, he spent quite some time out there with us, helping my littlest siblings master the slippery steps, holding them on his lap to ease their initial fear for the fast ride down and laughing as his older kids shot off the end and hit the ice that had formed where the hose was still trickling.

Our backyard became the favorite gathering place for all the kids in the neighborhood. During subsequent snowstorms we were all out there helping Dad replenish the mountain. The hill lasted all winter and there were still remnants well into the spring. The memory, however, has remained strong in our hearts and minds, and we still often begin sentences with, "Remember when Dad......"

 

[red horse ranch]

Wonderful story Blooie.

 

[Blooie]

Thanks....when I think about this I can still smell how cold the air was!

 

[DwayneNLiz]

"Remember when Dad......"

LOL, well when you said drinking and shoveling i was thinking more of a college aged embarassment

but this was much better!!
sounds like something my dad used to do but we didnt sled on it. The state plows used to plow our driveways, and my dad was very good friends with the driver that did our driveway, so our plow guy would push all the snow into 2 GINORMOUS piles. one out back and one out front, the one out back we used to tunnel through and dig out the center like an igloo, we would even put in a chimney (though never started a fire in there)

my dad would spray the outside and inside of our igloo so it would harden up overnight so we could climb on it and add onto it later (we were only at his house every-other weekend)

 

[Blooie]

LOL, well when you said drinking and shoveling i was thinking more of a college aged embarassment

but this was much better!!
sounds like something my dad used to do but we didnt sled on it. The state plows used to plow our driveways, and my dad was very good friends with the driver that did our driveway, so our plow guy would push all the snow into 2 GINORMOUS piles. one out back and one out front, the one out back we used to tunnel through and dig out the center like an igloo, we would even put in a chimney (though never started a fire in there)

my dad would spray the outside and inside of our igloo so it would harden up overnight so we could climb on it and add onto it later (we were only at his house every-other weekend)

Dads are the best!

 

[tigger19687]

I too grew up with parents that drank too much This story made me cry

 

[Amer]

Try to use a yakutian horse ))

Yakutia. Last news of this winter (i read it on the Internet) - schoolchildren were not canceled classes, because on the street was only -50 C. Classes are canceled if on the street - 52 C.
And I know the most severe frost that was here -37 C (in Moscow, two years ago) and then I remember, once again I did not want to go out on the street. They have there -50 C, it's okay, schoolchildren are walking, they go to school.

Seems like a very different place to live than Wisconsin! Do you own chickens? How do they handle it?

 

[lazy gardener]

We used to make the most awesome snow forts and igloos out of hollowed out snow banks. Some even had 2 rooms!

 

[Blooie]

Ma and Dad would never let us do that....Ma was paranoid that the tunnels would collapse and we'd all die a horrid death, smothered with snow packed in our noses, eyes, mouths and ears and too cold to stick a hand out for help. I think she saw one too many avalanches on B grade movies. <sigh> Grandson Jamie and I did one when he was about 3 or so. He played in it for days until it slowly melted away. Funny how things your parents say stick in your mind, ain't it? Even though I let him play in it, he only did when I was out there taking care of the critters. And I stuck a bicycle flag at the top of it as his "pennant" on his fort. Don't know what good that would do, but it was reassuring to see that orange flag standing upright in the snow. I figured if it fell, the fort had fallen.

 

[Pasha838]

Seems like a very different place to live than Wisconsin! Do you own chickens? How do they handle it?

This is not my picture, not my horse, i get this picture in the Internet. It`s yakutian breed of horses, they live in north of Rusia.

I live near of the Moscow, the climate here is relatively warm. The coldest night is -20 C this week.
For a bird, I usually build a well-insulated shed with a low ceiling, building it with a door to big greenhouses. When the weather is warm - the bird walks through the greenhouse, and when it's cold - I close it in the shed. (in the summer i don`t let the bird in the greenhouse, there are the tomatoes or cucumbers, the bird walk in another place, the shed have 2 or sometimes 3 doors to various places).

My chickens live now in the goat house, they are provided with long shelves along the corridor with access to the street (small doors in the wall), but since I have not yet started the goats - the chickens run around eveerywhere, I did not close them to the shelves. When on the street about 0 C I do nothing, if the frost begins, then in the evenings I heat the wood stove there (firewood is free, they are full, most often I burn pieces of sawn timber and any garbage). If the frost in the street is below -20 C, I start to stove the stove twice a day, and use more quality firewood (oak, birch), and usually (when there is no severe frost) I burn every nonsense in the stove.

In a severe frost, I do not let them out of the room. And if they walk - then I throw them on the ground a bad (second-rate) hay, slanting in the summer anywhere - some sticks from burdock and nettles, the remains of wheat straw, sometimes dirty sawdust with sand, dried thin birch branches. It's just that if they walk with their paws just in the snow, they freeze, they begin to press their paws.

I could warm up the rooms with electricity, but for electricity i have to pay money, and firewood is free, so it's sometimes easier for me to use the stove than to use electricity.

Houses for geese and ducks - there are low ceilings, geese and ducks - a lot, there I do not warm up at all (and when there is no severe frost they sleep in greenhouses, there is a lot of space in the houses do not go almost). Wooden floors with a second-class hay laid there (good hay I'm ashore for feeding, but rough, with "sticks", branches and different straw - a steal like a litter).