Snow Day

We have had very little snow this year.  Last year, we had a decent amount of snowfall, and the year before that we had three straight months of snow on the ground!  But this year, now that we have 3 snow plows, one for the 4 wheel drive truck we bought with snow plowing in mind, and two for each skid steer we have, there has been very little snow.  And this one?  The snow pictured below where we had close to 3" of snow with no meteorological notice and needed to get out and plow for our larger contracts?  Our snow plow truck (the only one that can also trailer the skid steers in the snow as well) was in a locked lot over an hour away awaiting an alignment.  And it snowed on a weekend.  And we had to sub out our work.  However, this was NOT a post on the lack of snow plows.  It's a post on sledding. :)

The kids and I wanted to get out and play as soon as we could after breakfast for fear that melting would occur before we had a chance to get out there.  During the last (even smaller) snow, the kids were sick, making it just heartbreaking for them that they had to stay inside rather than go out and play.  So right after breakfast, we started the hour long process of suiting everyone up.  (Oh, and this year, after going through two years of having only barely mediocre outwear for the kids during the loads of snow we had, I made sure to shop ebay and sales to make sure everyone had decent coats, suits, gloves and boots this year!  Yeah. It's the first time they've worn them.  At least everything I bought this year is unisex so every child from here on out can wear them!)  I was going to take Elizabeth out in the snow with us and just do what we could do with a 12 month old in the cold, but she fell asleep right when I was going to get ready to take them out.  It was actually somewhat of a relief because it certainly made playing with the others much easier!

Now that all of our sledding hills have been fenced in for (some of them now dead) livestock, it's a bit more challenging to find a good hill to sled down without hitting a fence.  But with supervision and lots of instruction, we were able to sled down this completely fenced in loooong hill without running into the fence (barbless though it is, I still don't want to run through a polywire fence even if it's NOT electrified!).

It was the PERFECT snow for sledding in.  Just deep enough to make things slick  and a small enough amount where you didn't get bogged down or make it hard for little ones to walk in.

I stayed at the bottom of the hill the whole time to keep Katie from sledding under the fence.  The older two were able to bail out in time, but Katie just doesn't have the coordination for that. ;)

Katie Mae thought she was big enough to carry her own sled up the hill.  That didn't last long.

Alan actually  slid down without turning around so all I could see was his back!

BAIL OUT!!!

Aww, doesn't Savannah look so sweet helping Katie up the hill?  What we probably didn't hear was the gritted teeth saying "Hurry up, Katie so I can sled now! (maybe not.  but probably.  They were actually all very sweet with each other and never fought at all (unbelievable but true).  Meanwhile, Alan looks like he's going "I gotta GO!!!!!" (pee that is)

Bracing for the sudden "Slam into Mama's hands" stop.

See? I told you it wouldn't last long.

Katie eventually tired of sledding and so did I, so we decided to walk to the barn to check on Chuck.

Chuck wanted to know WHAT all this white stuff is and WHY is it SOOO cold if I lie down????

We decided to have pity on him and took him to his warm, dry stall for the rest of the day.  Katie and I  then went in to have hot chocolate made from yummy, whole, raw milk while the others played out for another hour or so.