Frozen snow still exists

Published 7:41 pm Wednesday, February 17, 2010

By Staff
Lisa Tindell
News editor
There is snow in my freezer and I like it there. Last Friday was the first time my nearly 11-year-old had ever seen snow blanketed on the ground around our home. He had seen a flurry or two before, but nothing like what fell in Brewton last week.
As I headed off to work in the snow, my son stood at the window and watched as the beginning of the snow fell. I hated to leave him there since it had been a while since I’d seen enough snow to play in myself.
When I arrived home just after noon I discovered a mysterious plastic bag in my freezer. Although he wasn’t there when I arrived I knew what the bag contained.
I can recall a time when I had placed a similar bag filled with snow that fell when I was around the same age as my son. That bag, of course, was tossed after everything in the freezer thawed the summer after the snow when a hurricane churned into the Gulf of Mexico and created a power outage.
I know that bag of snow represents wonder, joy and excitement for my son. He filled it with mostly snow. There are a few leaves and even a little dirt mixed in with the snow placed joyfully in that bag.
After my son returned home and began collecting items needed to dress a snowman, he commented on the bag he had already placed in our freezer. According to him, the snow contained in the bag would make great snow cones or even some snow cream. (I hated to tell him I wasn’t interested in consuming either product made from the contents of that bag.)
With the melting of the snow in our yard Saturday, he quickly dressed and went to see if the huge snowball he’d packed into his wagon had survived the night and the early morning sun. This his surprise, the tightly packed 10 or so inches of snow in that wagon was still intact prompting another attempt at snowball fights with his mom.
Although the snow still existed in the wagon, the varying temperatures had caused it to melt a little and reharden into one huge chunk of ice. There was no chance we were having a snowball fight with what was in the wagon. He never mentioned getting the snowball from the freezer. I’m glad he didn’t.
My hope is now that the snowballs frozen in a plastic bag in my freezer will stay there for a while. Who knows, a good snow cone might be nice this summer.
Lisa Tindell is news editor for The Brewton Standard. She can be reached at lisa.tindell@brewtonstandard.comaa