By Marsha Norman
It sometimes seems like winter is in no hurry to leave and that it might just decide to stick around until May or even Memorial Day. This is especially true on the little knob where I live. It is planted in pine trees that are now 60 or 70 years old. They are tall and tightly spaced, so they block out a lot of sun. We still have snow on the yard when some of my friends are out working in their perennial beds.
But, eventually and inevitably, the snow finally melts and this is when the treasure hunt begins. It is always amusing—and a little melancholy—to see what we neglected to put away in the last cleanup before the first snow. And to find what new treasures the dogs—and other creatures—have dragged in.
Back when the kids were little, they could be relied on to leave things out in the meadow that I would spend hours searching for around the house before I gave up and bought replacements. I’ve found several soggy single mittens. Socks. A hat. Even a boot. I don’t know how that made it outside to be buried in the first blizzard of winter. But by the time it reappeared, it was both too damaged and too small to be of any use.
There was something a little sad about that tiny boot.
The kids would spend a lot of time building little forts and clubhouses and the like and they equipped these with things from their rooms and, sometimes, my kitchen. It makes sense, I suppose, since if you are going to have a proper clubhouse or fort, then you need to have a kitchen. Which accounted for a spatula and a large slotted-spoon that went missing and that I found, tarnished and rusting, when the snows finally melted.
There was something a bit academic about some of my searches. I would find toys that had been wildly popular a few months earlier but that no kid cared about anymore. Remember light-sabers? I once found one of them in the wet grass at the edge of the meadow when the snow melted. Even if it had been brand new, no kid would have wanted it. The light-saber’s time had passed and we were now on to Ninja turtles or something. I felt a little like an archeologist on a dig somewhere, turning up some child’s trinket from another age.
I have found Frisbees. And balls of all sorts. Shuttlecocks that were lost in the high grass during a badminton game. A horseshoe.
The dogs, of course, did their part so I would usually find a few chew-toys and, occasionally, something one of them had eaten but couldn’t digest and had … er, passed.
The most memorable of these finds was a tube sock.
I’d like to write that there was some particular item I found after the thaw one year. Something special and charmed and maybe even valuable. But that never happened. Most of what I found went straight into the trash. Still, now that the kids are no longer little, or even “kids,” and there isn’t much to find beyond the occasional garden tool that I left in tall grass, I miss those treasure hunts.
But I don’t miss the snow. Not at this time of year when spring is on us in full or clearly heading our way. As usual, we celebrate the season here at Stratton Magazine. We have a story on morel hunting. We also take a look at building a kitchen garden and at some wonderful traditions—at Williams store in Dorset and the Wilson House in East Dorset.
Hope you enjoy these treasures of the season.
Cheers!
