A Snowman like the Ancient Egyptians would have made...if they had snow
I was bound and determined to give Isaac Anthony a snowman. A real, two eyes made out of coal snowman. I reached into the fireplace and grabbed to cooling, black cinders and Bianca fetched a small carrot out of the fridge and we made our way outside.
But it was cold. I mean bone chilling cold. So cold that the snow would not pack. It was like white saw dust. Boo. Still resolved to building a snowman I ventured out back to our yard waste pile and found two great sticks for arms. There I noticed that the snow, more directly exposed to the sun, was perfect packing snow. I could have sculpted the crown to a tallboy out of this stuff. So we took Isaac Anthony out of his sled and made three huge snow balls. I would pack the stuff to a big enough shape and then send it down the hill, in classic Charlie Brown fashion, to make it into a big ball. The first, big ball was pretty big. In the end it was about 200 pounds of wet, packed, sticky snow. Isaac Anthony's sled strained under the weight and Dad trudged around to the front of the house. I imagined a whip cracking over my head as I worked on the Pharaoh's snowman, pulling the weighted sled up the hill.
Finally we made it to the front yard and built Harold (all Sculimbrene snowmen are named Harold, after our original snowman that I surprise built Bianca one day in grad school to cheer her up). Carrot nose, check. Two eyes made out of coal, check. One sweaty, stubborn Dad oddly moist and exhausted in the front yard, check. Picture of Isaac with Harold, check:
But it was cold. I mean bone chilling cold. So cold that the snow would not pack. It was like white saw dust. Boo. Still resolved to building a snowman I ventured out back to our yard waste pile and found two great sticks for arms. There I noticed that the snow, more directly exposed to the sun, was perfect packing snow. I could have sculpted the crown to a tallboy out of this stuff. So we took Isaac Anthony out of his sled and made three huge snow balls. I would pack the stuff to a big enough shape and then send it down the hill, in classic Charlie Brown fashion, to make it into a big ball. The first, big ball was pretty big. In the end it was about 200 pounds of wet, packed, sticky snow. Isaac Anthony's sled strained under the weight and Dad trudged around to the front of the house. I imagined a whip cracking over my head as I worked on the Pharaoh's snowman, pulling the weighted sled up the hill.
Finally we made it to the front yard and built Harold (all Sculimbrene snowmen are named Harold, after our original snowman that I surprise built Bianca one day in grad school to cheer her up). Carrot nose, check. Two eyes made out of coal, check. One sweaty, stubborn Dad oddly moist and exhausted in the front yard, check. Picture of Isaac with Harold, check: