Ice and Snow

My daughter didn't want to study her spelling words.

"Why ever not?" I asked.

"They make me sad," she replied.

I looked at the list. There was Snow, and Ice, as well as Valentine and Washington. "What's wrong with those words?" I wondered.

She pointed to Valentine. "I know that's going to happen," she said. "But there isn't any snow. And there isn't any ice."

It has been an uncommonly warm winter. For some folks, that is a good thing. No digging out the driveway, no huge piles of snow where you want to park ... that's all good. But from a kid's perspective, there isn't any sledding (we call it sleigh riding in my area of New Jersey) or snowball throwing or icicle gathering and eating. (My kid loves icicles, more than ice pops.)
Remember the scene when it snowed in To Kill a Mockingbird? Scout and her brother went to all the neighbors' houses and asked them for their snow. With what they collected, they were able to build one snowman.

That's what we did in the last "storm." We scraped all the snow off the lawn and managed to make a decent sized snow dude. A day later, he melted.

The crocuses are coming up early. Soon, the pear trees will start to bud in the front lawn. Easter will come along, and winter will be over.

It's a good thing. But also a shame.