Walking in winter

The snow is finally melting in earnest! This place is a mushy slushy wet mess! Layers of litter and dog poop that were frozen in between each snowfall are slowly thawing and falling to the roads and sidewalks. The streets are strewn with reddish orange clay pebbles that the city sprinkles down in lieu of shoveling, for tire traction. The roads have networks of new cracks and too many new potholes. The few avenues that were plowed a handful of times have piles of dirty snow in the gutter, laced with chipped yellow street paint that was scraped up by the snow plow. It looks like a fierce battle has been waged all over Grandview! I hope that spring comes soon to heal the scars of winter with lots of green growth. 

Once the snow, slush, and ice are all officially gone, I know I'm not going to want to relive the cold memories until about mid-July at the earliest, so I'd better get these pictures off my chest now. On February first, I woke up and looked out the window to see the sunrise through the impressive toothy icicles hanging from our roof. I was amazed. I have never seen icicles this long in real life before, and that sunlight turned them into diamond spikes guarding our house! Since The Melt started, the icicles have all fallen off--some fell straight down into our furnace fan, making a loud clinking chopping noise when the fan turned on. It was a startling sound.

After school, Jay and Rose have been walking home together across the frozen crusty white snow-drifted field behind our house. I love when they come in the door rosy-cheeked, with all that fresh cold air swirling around them, eyes alight with intuition as they start telling me about their latest walking-home adventure. Jay: "Rose walked so slow I had to yell at her lots of times!" Rose: "I saw so many beautiful things that I wanted to look at!" Me: "Yelling isn't the kind way to say hurry up. What beautiful things did you see, Rose?" They both responded at once--I often find myself holding two conversations at the same time. It gets confusing and chaotic fast.

 The approach

Jay saw me on the back porch and waved. 

Our back gate has been frozen shut for two months, so through the gap they squeeze. 

A good ole fashioned walk home from school gets their blood flowing after a long day of being cooped up in school. Amber and I celebrate when the big kids get home.