Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Hopefully everyone has gotten dug out, relearned how to drive on icy roads and hasn't frozen too many appendages this week. The epic snow of last week made me think about snow in general.

There are a few things I remember about snow storms when I was growing up on the farm. Usually we didn't pay them too much attention, although there were always chores to be done and sidewalks to scoop. When I was really small I remember a drift that was so tall that we could climb it to the top of the roof of the garage and slide down. Great fun. I think that was also the year that there were cows at the south house that Dad had that walked across the drifts and over fences into other fields and it was only after the snow started to melt that he discovered them all holled up in a tiny little chicken house that is no longer there. I think we had a sled a time or two but when those weren't available we would use scoop shovels and ride down the drifts on them. Other times any old piece of tin would work as well.

There weren't too many places around the farm that would drift, but those places that would were a great treasure to us. We would dig little igloo forts and hide out in them. Sometimes there were tunnels dug around the drifts and they usually would last all of an hour before the dog or one of the brothers would fall through them.

When I was a bit older we rigged a snow plow out of an old Heston bale mover and some boards and put it on the back of the A-C 7020. That was one of my jobs to fire up the tractor and push snow around. We played in the snow, making forts and snowmen and making trails around the farm weaving in and out of trees and around buildings pretending we were great explorers embarking on a great mission to discover the treasures of the unknown world. Most of the time we just got colds. Colds that would hang on for weeks it seemed.

Even though we would bundle up, it didn't take long for mittens and gloves to be soaked through, and there was always someone loosing a stocking cap somewhere in the yard. And in the days before snow pants, we just put on extra jeans and went out to play. We stay out as long as we could stand it and then come in, dumping out wet and snow filled clothes on the kitchen floor. Sometimes there was something hot to drink, or a bowl of soup to warm us up. And we prayed we wouldn't catch a cold.

Colds meant only one thing around our farm. Vicks Vapo Rub and lots of it. I'm not sure there was ever a time I was happy to be slathered up with it. Gobs and gobs on your chest and just a bit under your nose. Throw a tshirt on and crawl in bed and that was the remedy for all colds. I know it worked, although it always made me feel hot and sticky under all the blankets.

It's funny somtimes the memories that come floating to the surface just because of a little ....make that epic snow.

See you next week....Rememeber, We're all in this together.