My memories of building snow forts as a child have to do with enormous piles of snow. Were my childhood winters snowier than my adult winters? It would seem so. Even so, I remember a snow-filled Saskatchewan winter (1998?) when my young children and I were completely absorbed building a snow fort on the 5 meter high snow mountain created by our makeshift snow plow. This fort had stairs and rooms, stained glass windows (frozen blocks of ice with food colouring), thrones, tables, and a flag. The fort consumed our energy for days on end. A few years later, my kids were too old to have their mum build snow forts with them, but I remember the happy times they had with friends creating caves and tunnels in big snow drifts around the farm.
Since having an ice rink, I have returned to building with snow, usually in later winter when snow drifts form, and can be sliced just so with a shovel . At a recent winter PLAYshop (A WInter’s Day at Kerry Farm), my inspiring friend, Barbara Mader, built a small igloo like structure – too small for a person or a big dog, and with no door to get in. It is meant to be lit inside and you can see the beautiful results in the photos. I am always inspired by Barbara’s love of playing with snow – creating unlikely and narrow winding paths, walls for no (apparent) reason, or beautiful designs.
While Barbara was shovelling, I was hollowing out a part of a curved snow drift thinking it would be an inviting spot to crawl into when the world (the news!) got to be a little too much. A few days later, along came my art buddy Emora who loved my little cave, but really thought it should be a tunnel. Ten days later it became a wonderful curved tunnel with different views from either end.
I loved digging inside that tunnel. It was quieter than quiet in there. It was warm. It smelled like snow. The wind howled outside but all was still within. Carving away at the sides and roof of the tunnel reveals different kinds and qualities of snow – sedimentary bands of tightly packed crystals, icy pockets, maple syrup season snow (big hard granules), and snow soft as soft can be. A white, bluey, purple, gray cave. It was like crawling right into the heart of winter and resting a while. Part of me wishes I had left it a cave, but there is something compelling about finally breaking through to that light at the end of the tunnel! For my efforts, I received great joy and delight as well as the sorest abdominal muscles I have ever had – digging and carving while on your stomach or back is more of a workout than I would have guessed.
If the forecast is right, tomorrow I welcome more snow, which we desperately need in drought stricken Eastern Saskatchewan. I also welcome snow because when the North wind blows (as it surely will), more drifts will be created, and curved blocks of snow are cut easily from drifts where they make their own lovely shape. It is so fun to slide your shovel into a drift and see which way a crack forms and what shape your next piece of snow will be.
Barbara Mader, with her slick shovel, creating a secret path, 2020
Barbara Mader’s beautiful snow structure lit from within by “Larry’s Lantern”
From afar
Close up
Outside view of tunnel, Kerry Farm Ice Rink 2020
Feet first
The other side
Curved blocks of snow cut from drifts
Ice Lantern and snow design by Barbara Mader
Mystery creature
from 2013 when the drifts were THIS high
As summer begins, these girls reminded me how you don’t need very much to have fun if you have an active imagination. They never go straight from a to b without making it into a game or a play or something to laugh about. What a joy to spend a day with 4 girls, each one knowing they are absolutely loved, each one expecting something wonderful around the next corner, each one delighting in being with their three friends. They have amazing parents, and being with this group reminded of this poem, which appears on Facebook from time to time.
I return again and again to the same part of Pheasant Creek, in different seasons, at different times of day. I have learned where the wild bergamot flourishes, where the buffalo berries can be found, where the coyote digs her den, the location of the drumming log of the ruffed grouse, or the tree that the pair of red tail hawks return to each year. While I know it as well as I know any place, I am constantly being surprised by new discoveries.
for a moment before setting off – to take note of what was all around me, to really feel the earth beneath my feet, to thank the earth for her many gifts. What if I took my first few steps with love – love and reverence directed towards the earth herself?
My whole walk isn’t this mindful – I also like to stretch my legs, walk quickly, daydream, walk backwards, sing while I walk, or just feel good about moving physically. But now and again throughout my walk, I stop – take pause, take note, remember who I am walking on, take one more step with love.
Happy International Women’s day from the Kerry Farm Ice Rink, where spring is in the air.
In the book I am reading, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes learning how to basket weave. As she weaves, she feels as if she participates in “the beginning of a reweaving of the bond between the women and the land.” This is how I feel on the ice rink in a small way – working and playing with what nature gives us, what is already there to co-create something wonderful, and as I am doing it I am befriending and getting to know the natural world better. In this, too, the women and the children will lead.
“Art in the City” offers young people an opportunity to experience the city differently – looking for art in all the wrong places, or at least, in unexpected places, as well as looking at art where you would expect to find it – in art galleries. Throughout the day, the art explorers interact with art they see, by sketching, writing, and sharing their thoughts with others in the group about what piece they love best or which piece arouses their curiousity. Each stop is a surprise. With their eyes attuned to art, they see art everywhere – on the delicate hoar frost on winter trees, in a park bench, in the pattern on a rug. on the side of a truck.
The two shapes consisting of torn scraps seemed to need orange backgrounds. The shapes seemed to me to be related is some way. They wanted to dance together. I had so much fun placing the shapes this way and that. Using scraps of shiny paper, I made ladders. Using cut bits of dyed paper, I cut free floating steps in the air. Using my favourite block print scraps, I created curving and straight roads leading somewhere and leading nowhere. I felt the need for connections of one kind or another between the two shapes.
