When I was a little girl up in northwest Wisconsin, we had a lot of Big Snow winters. The snow started early and lasted all winter long. The country roads cut through massive snow banks that my friends and I would build tunnels through. (We always used the buddy system so someone was on the outside to watch for the plow or dig you out if needed.)  One year I made several snow carvings of different animals, each about 5 feet tall – a duck, a horse, a swan. Cars would slow down as they passed mom's place, trying to figure out what those odd shapes were back off the road.

Something else I remember from winters past was grandma's snow fence. Grandma had a fairly long, thin driveway, and without the snow fence, I'm sure it would have been blown shut more often than not. When my brother bought grandma's place, he planted a treeline where the snowfence had been. This now protects the driveway (even better than the fence). [Read more…]