What happens on a Snow Day

I thought I would give a somewhat detailed account of snow days around here. We never lived in an area that cancelled school. In Utah, it took so much snow to cancel school, I can only recall one day during the time I taught in Utah. I'm sure there were more. I had left early to make the 31 mile drive (it only took 1 1/2 hours), and got there about 10 minutes AFTER the district had cancelled! Then I got to drive back home through the continuing snow. THAT was fun!

Here in Arkansas, where snow frequently comes with its friends Ice, Sleet, and Freezing Rain, we have a few days each year. This year has been particularly strange. Concord cancels easier than Conway, becaue we draw from a rural region, and these back roads may be impassable, even if the highways are good. So what does a snow day look like for us?

Most frequently, a snow day starts with Dad (Scott) getting up at least one hour early, to assess, and usually make the drive to Conway. I hate leaving my classes to a substitute, and if the roads are at least passable, I have driven in some very nasty conditions, and I am always careful.

On those days that I can't make it to Conway, the routine varies greatly, with some common threads. First, we thank our Heavenly Father that we did not receive severe storm damage, and especially if we don't lose power. We have been in ice storms where we spent a week without electricity. I believe one of my first posts last year was about the ice storm.

If we have chickens, which is usual, we start the day by taking care of the farm. If the driveway, which is steep and long, is too slick, we sometimes tromp up the hill through the woods. Usually we can get Bob's old red truck up the driveway. It is a beast! Once or twice we have had to take the 4-wheeler, and years ago it was so slick that Bob and I ran screws into the bottom of our boots to make the trek up to the houses. These last few storms were not so bad. The dry powdery snow doesn't really slow down the red truck when it is in 4-wheel drive.

On the rare snow days where chickens aren't a factor ( like the snow event of Jan 29th-31st) we have a much more relaxed approach. We sleep til the kids start moving, or until Michelle and I start showing our "OLDNESS" by getting sore from laying still too long. Yes! Young people, it IS possible to get sore from being in bed too long! Trust me, you will believe me someday:) This time, we weren't rushing to work in the chickenhouses, because we had just sold on Tuesday, and had not heard when new chicks were coming. It usually takes about 14 days. So we had a slow, leisurely breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Liz made a really scrumptious chocolate gravy, and Michelle made her best milk gravy, and we made a triple batch of Mom's sky-high biscuits!

Needless to say, we didn't move much for awhile after breakfast. We shovelled off the walk-way, then the kids and I went and shovelled Bob and Phyllis' walks. Bob asked us to go build a fire in the dog-kennel. Then the kids wanted to try out some sledding. Well, we don't have sleds, so we improvised. we searched out some pieces of old panelling in the old house, and ran some rope through the corners. They didn't work well on the driveways, but behind the chicken houses are steep enough the kids could get some sled runs going. Just not very long. we played in the snow for a good 2 hours.

Well, this time around, Bob informed us that we get chickens on Tuesday Feb. 2, but we have to wait for a special spray to come. So we waited, and waited. I can't do anything to get the houses ready, even though we had Friday and Saturday, because we are waiting on this spray outfit. He finally came Sunday afternoon, just before dark. I had to wait til Monday night to get houses ready for birds.

The rest of the day revolves around movies, video games, cooking chili, scones, or some other warm comfort food. We work (or play) on the computer, and read, sometimes a lot!!

These 3 days (Feb 8-10), we have had small birds to tend. Saturday, I had dealt with some damage from the last snow storm, which had displaced fan shrouds, and jammed the big exhaust fans on these 3 houses. We only have birds in the 3 houses up the hill, so I haven't even been to house 1 since last Monday night, when I needed some PVC to repair a waterline in house 4. The fans are running fine, and I have checked each morning after snow, to make sure the snow drifts did not drop the fan shrouds again.

That means we have a free morning, once the chicken houses have been tended to.

We have improved our home-made sledding options with some plastic sheeting and some slick packaging material, but we still have to stick to the short, really-steep runs behind the chicken houses. Next year, I will be prepared, with either some home-made sleds that can ZIP, or some store bought options. They are hard to find around here, because sledding is not usually an option. But next year, we will be READY for some snow days and some awesome sledding! The chicken house driveway is nearly 300 feet long! If we can get anything sliding, it will be a great run!

This year, we have spent the days sledding, building either snowmen or snow forts, drinking cocoa, making stew, baking cookies, and the obligatory computers, video games, and movie marathons.

It sometimes makes me wonder how easy it was to get cabin fever and go completely stir crazy back in the day before all this technology made distractions so available. I think the kids would have killed each other, or Michelle would have buried us ALL in the snow:)