Winter can be fun, too.

 We are having a snowstorm today with a blizzard warning for this afternoon and tonight, but it won’t be as bad as it is right now on the east coast where they are getting 80 cm of snow and more. Our weather people predicted only about 20 cm, which can be bad enough with high winds that create snow drifts. The streets are slippery and there have been a few accidents again. It’s the idiots that never learn, but sometimes even careful drivers slide off the road into the ditch or worse into another car. The best thing is to stay at home until the storm has blown over. Of course, not everybody can do that. People still work. As a retiree I have the option to stay home and I am exercising that option today. We did our grocery shopping yesterday.

Some people don’t like winter. I don’t really mind it, especially when I can look outside from a cozy and warm place. Except for snow blowing and feeding the birds there isn’t much to do outside, not like all the work we have starting in Spring until Fall.

Looking out

Our backyard on a sunny winter's day

I’m not into riding snow mobiles or other sports in the winter. I don’t play hockey, and don’t put me on skates. It wouldn’t be a pretty site. When I was a kid in Germany I wanted skates, but my parents couldn’t afford to buy me any, if they even were available after the war. So my dad, who was quite handy, made me a pair of skates. He carved two pieces of wood to be tied to my shoes. For runners he used a long piece of thick wire which he hammered into the underside of the carved wood pieces. Needles to say, my legs were all over the ice. It was impossible to break with those round wires under my home made skates. I managed to survive those years without breaking my ankles. But I was happy. I had skates. We didn’t have fancy hockey rinks. We skated on 2 inches of ice on ponds. I’m surprised nobody ever broke through the ice and drowned. But as kids we recognized the dangers and were careful not going on the ice if it started cracking when the first kid who tried it out to see  if it was thick enough to hold anyone.

We didn’t have adult supervision either, and no cell phones to call home to tell our parents what we were doing. Everyone carried a pocket knife, but we didn’t stab each other. We used the knives for carving or playing games like throwing the knives into the ground in a game where you tried to build an empire by claiming land inside a square scratched into the ground. We carried slingshots in our back pockets to do target shooting, but not each other. Sometimes we shot at birds or rabbits. Never got any though. Things were different when I grew up. I would almost say more civilized with fewer laws to protect us. We didn’t need them. We were smart enough. We played outside. We talked with each other in person, not on iphones. We had real friends we knew and played with, not a hundred or more, ones we never met in the flesh and didn’t really know. We had respect for teachers, cops, older people. We would have never dared to threaten anyone, because we knew we’d get punished. The only guns we carried were made out of wood and shot small homemade arrows. We made bows from willow branches and used long willow branches to ride on, pretending they were horses. We used our imagination to play and make up games.

But I’m getting carried away with my lamenting. Back to fun stuff. I went ice-fishing last week with my son and grandchildren. We fished on Lake Winnipeg. There were so many fishing huts strung along shore like pearl on a string, but many anglers put up tents. We had one. Amazing technology. It stores inside a bag about five feet long and can easily be carried by one person, but it pops open into a tent large enough to hold four people with chairs and still room to have four holes in the ice. The ice was about 4 feet thick, strong enough to drive on, and with a good auger it takes not even a minute to drill one hole. The sun was shining, but it was nippy in the north wind. We had a heater inside the tent, barbequed sausages for lunch and had a great time, even though the action wasn’t as good as we’d hoped. We caught only a couple of walleyes, but we had nibblers that stole our frozen minnows off the hooks.

Winter doesn’t have to be boring. There is a lot of fun stuff to do, but it is important to get out and do something, especially for young people before they get stupid ideas from the video games they play and from watching too many violent shows. So many people do nothing and complain about the long winter and the cold. With warm clothing and insulated boots it is fun to be outside. Of course not on a day like today when it’s miserable out there. High winds and blowing snow. That’s when it’s time to stay inside and spend some time on the computer without feeling guilty about it.

Our cozy tent on the ice of Lake Winnipeg

There are fish under the ice after all