Snow! Didn’t think we’d have any more of this stuff by April 18th. It began last evening. Everyone was up rather late, and I back up early myself. Clearly it was wet snow, but there was enough of it to stick and by now, at ten in the morning there are a good four or five, lumpy inches of the stuff out there. I can hear my mom sighing to see yet again more snow, this late in the year. But it will clearly disappear before long. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the fifties, and I’m very glad to have this quiet, blanketing to look out upon for as long as it lasts, this Saturday morning.
At six, I went out and threw some sunflower seeds around thinking the birds might appreciate it. They were all quickly covered with flakes. Down on the trial I saw what I expected. The snow wasn’t really sticking on the gravel the way it was on the lawn or in the trees. There’d be no way to cross country ski down here this morning. But perhaps back up on the flat patch of my lawn I might make a go of it.
Earlier in the year, around Christmas time I’d rented a pair of cross-country skis, boots, and poles for the season. I went down to the rail trail after the first big snow and had a try. I’m not bad as a downhill skier, but haven’t a clue about cross-country skiing, having only done it once or twice as a kid. It took me fifteen minutes to get the second biding to catch my boot that first day. And ligaments in my knees and muscles in my calf weren’t so sure about what it was I was doing. Once or twice I could feel myself catch my body just before I might have twisted and hurt something. And after two days of back and forth that were sweat-inducing, which was the purpose, as you can’t ride your bike very far in that snow, it all melted and it never snowed again, damn global warming, but for one time when just like this there was wet snow, which I waited on for a few hours, getting chores done and only then readied myself for skiing to find it has already melted too far away to justify the hassle. And therefore, I’d only really used these skis twice, this winter.
Fully expecting to not have such a chance again this year, I bounded up from the trail and resolved to plod around the flat stretch down at the base of our yard where one could proceed in a little sixty-by-twenty-foot rectangle of lawn and snow. I got the boots in the skis easily enough this time. My left knee needed some popping but after a few runs around the parallelogram I’d gotten a groove and before long I’d forgotten that it was work and started to enjoy myself. Fully expecting it to all slide away before the end of the day, I am now at peace haven gotten me money’s worth out of this, my first ever annual cross-country ski rental.
Saturday, 04/18/20
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