A week ago early forecasts suggested we might get up to eight inches of snow. That was music to my ears since this would be the first year in a quarter century that I didn’t make a snow sculpture. Later forecasts were for 4 to 6 inches. In fact areas a little to our north got up to 11 inches over the weekend. Only five miles away they got five inches. Our home, however, is on the crest of the hill overlooking Lake Superior. We got a little over two inches at our house. I need four or five more. Maybe we will get it with a new storm about to blow over us tomorrow and Wednesday but so far it sounds like it will skirt to the South.
Even the snow we got was mixed with North Dakota. I’m pretty fussy about my snow. I work hard to avoid soil contaminated with carbon from car exhausts. It melts a lot faster than purer snow as the contaminants soak up sunshine and convert it to snow melting infrared radiation. Closer to the solstice with the sun hanging low and the days short that’s not that big a deal. As we approach March it guarantees a short lived sculpture. I have often made them later in the year only to have people ask me why I didn’t make one because they only drive past my home once a week, often three or four days after some creation has melted away.
If I get some snow yet I’ll put something together long enough to take a picture of it and post it on the Internet along with my others.
I do have one snow sculpting date on my calendar. Stowe Elementary in Gary is having a “Leap Day” carnival and I was asked to help kids make snow sculptures. I’ve done this a half a dozen times elsewhere in the past. When after several weeks of brown lawns I suggested we might need to do something else I was told that Tom Kasper, now of the Duluth School Board, had found a way to guarantee snow. Thanks Tom. I think he may have used his influence in the City to get man made snow from the Spirit Valley Ski Hill to Stowe. With the recent accumulation and some snow plows that may no longer be necessary. I expect we will be just fine Wednesday. Unless a snow day is called.
(BTW – Tom is one of the new school board members I can’t fault for the Duluth Schools current situation. He didn’t realize when he got elected that the Red Plan was about to become a black hole.)
In the meantime we should have white. I made a crude little “How to” for the kids in advance of their adventure in the Winter Arts.
