In the morning I looked out the window. I thought of our local Hamilton Park, as we don’t have there. Our sidewalk was covered with beautiful smooth snow dunes and the wind was still swirling around. I checked the outside temperature. It was way too cold to go out. Especially for our six year old. It was still cloudy. It helps when the sun is shining. We patiently waited. After lunch three of us got warmly dressed and headed out. First to shovel the snow on our driveway and then to the Hamilton Park sledding, a minute away from our home.

“He failed to see his shadow, indicating an early spring. He was operating under heavy cloud, with snow and blowing snow in the forecast from Environment Canada.” ~ CBC News Canada

We had a good 30 cm of snow accumulated on our driveway. In some parts it was more like 50 cm. Almost every winter snowstorm we get these beautiful snow dunes on our side of the house near the house entrance. Some even hang off the roof. Whereas our neighbour gets almost nothing on their side. However, it is interesting to note that only once we experienced wind blowing in the opposite direction. That was the only time we had almost no snow to clean compared to everyone else.

Did I mention it was a PA day today? Eventually when we got to the park, winds were still blowing. By the time we were sledding down the hill the skies were clear and the exposed sun slowly started to set on the horizon.

Hamilton Park was covered with a beautiful pure white blanket of snow. The views were perfect in all directions. The clouds cleared some more and a perfect blue sky contrasted against the pure crystal white ground.

We had fun sledding. When it comes to snow I look at my six year old and these words pop in my head, ‘born to be wild‘. He had so much fun rolling in the snow, throwing snow up in the air, going up and then down the hill and over the ramp. Also making friends and sharing sleds. We are going to have lots of good memories from this park.

So it is already February. Today was also Groundhog Day. With that amount of snowfall no wonder Wiarton Willie didn’t see his shadow. Perhaps that is a good thing. But then no matter what the groundhog predicted today, we enjoyed our winter day and are going to enjoy the rest of the winter season.

Anna Lozyk Romeo
Aurora, ON