Winter Walk

When I suggested to the girls that we take a walk, I had in my mind an image of a quiet, companionable stroll through the woods behind our house. I would take my camera and capture shots of them looking properly pink-cheeked and happy walking in the crystalline, winter woods. Maybe some melting snow would slip from a branch and hit one of us on the head, creating one of those spontaneous laugh-out-loud-moments. It would all be very Little House on the Prairie/Walton-esque.

Yeah, I'm delusional. Whatever.

Despite the fact that it was an unseasonably warm weekend, and we'd lost quite a bit of our snowpack, we didn't get far (um, about two feet) before we realized that there was more snow left than we'd realized. Sinking in to knee-depth or beyond, we discovered that our boots functioned much like soup ladles, scooping the wet snow neatly down into the boot whenever we lifted our foot to take another step. After three steps, our socks and our tucked-in pant legs were soaking wet.

No one was laughing out loud.

There was actually quite a bit of grumbling and and stopping to tip snow out of boots.
We trudged doggedly across the yard. "It won't be as deep in the woods!" I told the girls cheerfully, "The trees keep the snow from getting as deep back there." Seemed like solid logic to me, unless you fail to consider that the trees have no LEAVES this time of year.

We had just picked our way down the back slope when Bear turned to me and said, "Mom? This kind of sucks. "

I had to admit that, yeah, it kind of did.

Bug, wet to the thigh, moaned, "Why won't you let us walk on the street?"

I conceded failure. We turned back and re-slogged across the yard. Side note: This is my rhododendron, which we passed en route to the street. You're going to have to take my word for it that it's a lot more impressive when it's not buried in snow. Because looking at it right now, the word that springs to mind is "pathetic." Or maybe "stubby." (Also I had my white balance set all wrong when I took this picture, so really this photo irritates me on a multitude of levels).

Moving on.Now THIS is much more our speed. And while it was a lot less picturesque than I had envisioned, we wound up having a terrific walk. We chatted and laughed. The breeze felt warm on our faces, after weeks of days in the teens. The sky was a clear light blue.

It did not suck.