Cello's 4th Birthday! And it turns out ... pneumonia!

First, and most importantly, it is Cello's 4th birthday!  How handsome and happy does this birthday boy look?!?  I wish I could be there to share cake - but I'm counting days until Sam and both Cello and Cachao come for a visit to Maine in July!  Happy Birthday Cello!

So turns out I wasn't "better."  Last Monday I felt worse, significantly, and also thought I might have a fever.  Turns out, yes, 101.1 - not off the charts but I knew how I felt.  So David took me to Pen Bay to the ER.  The nurse who did the intake seemed skeptical, or maybe I just felt defensive and stupid.  Then I saw handsome, kind and very young doctor, Dr. M.  He asked questions, heard the history I told, listened to my chest.  He said it sounded to him like I had pneumonia, although he couldn't hear it in my chest when he listened.  He sent me for chest x-rays.  Bingo.  Pneumonia.  Eventually I got a prescription for an antibiotic and came home.

The med instructions and the general discharge papers both said I could feel "improvement" in 1-2 days and feel "significantly better" in 3-4 days, and warned direly of the need to keep taking all 10 days of antibiotics.  The next day I felt terrible.  Unfortunately I'm in a particularly bad stretch at work, so I couldn't just stay in bed, but I did end up taking about half day.  By the 3rd day I did feel "some improvement."  I knew it because I woke up and wanted coffee for the first time in many days.  Since then, some down and up and down.  People I talk to - who have had or know someone who had - pneumonia tell me it can take weeks to recover fully.  The hardest parts are the periodic deep racking cough (which I think may actually be useful in breaking up the mucus in my lung - only have the pneumonia in one lung, for which I am grateful) and how battered and bruised my whole body feels from the coughing, and the extreme exhaustion, which actually comes in waves.

I had a nice long catch up with Dan one day this week.  He was wondering when I would be coming to CT.  I had to cancel the CT scan that was scheduled for May 11, and therefore, the planned trip, too.   Young Dr. M of the ER said that the pneumonia could cause "ambiguity" in the scan results, that lymph nodes in my chest would appear angry and swollen, etc.  I waited until Friday and then rescheduled for the day after Memorial Day.  Hopefully I'll be well on the recovery road by then.

Meanwhile, the world moves on, although without my paying very close attention.  I hate that.  But frankly, just finding the energy to work every day pretty much has taken all my attention, all my energy.  While my attention has been otherwise occupied those delicate light green early leaves have burst out on the trees everywhere.  The willows are positively fuzzy with greenness.  And our own tulips have colored:

I took this of Ella the same afternoon in our back yard:

Here in Mid Coast Maine, life goes on.  Here's a randomly selected sample from this week's Free Press:

• Star Gazing at Deer Foot Farm, Fri., May 15, 8 p.m., Rte. 131, Appleton. Georges River Land Trust presents Pete Kalajian of Central Maine Astronomical Society, who leads naked-eye observation. Public welcome. FMI: 594-5166.
• Alewife Walk with Naturalist, Sat., May 16, 8 a.m. Don Reimer leads it at Payson Park, Warren. All welcome. FMI: Georges River Land Trust, 594-5166.
• Sensory Awareness Walk at Cross Point Preserve, Sat., May 16, 9-10:30 a.m. All ages. Meet at trailhead parking lot on Rte. 27, 3.2 miles from Boothbay Center monument. FMI: thall@bbrlt.org.
• Home Firewood Production, Sat., May 16, 9-11 a.m., Hidden Valley Nature Center Barn, Jefferson. Learn how to process & stack next winter's wood. $12/$10 HVNC, SWLA, DLWA, PWA and SVCA members. Advance registration preferred: hvnc.org.
• Birding Paddle on Goose River, Sat., May 16, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Meet at put-in behind Swan Lake Grocery off Rte. 141, Swanville. Bring boat, lunch, sunscreen. FMI: BelfastBayWatershed.org.
• Maine Old Cemetery Association Program, Sat., May 16. Morning program ($3) and lunch ($7) at First Congregational-Christian Church, New Gloucester, followed by field trip to New Gloucester Lower Cemetery. RSVP by May 7: 877-7675, rootslilla@gmail.com.
• "Spirituality and Religion" Public Conversation, Sat., May 16, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Farmstead Conf. Ctr., Rte. 1, Rockport. Speakers and small-group discussions for people of all (or no) religions. $25 covers lunch. Send check by May 13: Nativity Lutheran Church, 179 Old County Rd., Rockport, 04849. FMI: 596-0519.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, I guess.  Later today, I am hoping to have the energy to drive to Rockport and join the rest of my ukulele ensemble to pay 3 songs at some private school fundraiser.  They asked our teacher if he would be willing to do it and he asked us.  The last time we were ALL together to practice was a couple weeks ago so I hope we don't suck too bad.  But, hey, it's free entertainment and its UKULELES!!  Ukuleles make you smile!

Peace (and many more happy birthdays to the Cello Man!)

Spring, a morning visit and another rant

Spring arrives, sooner or later, usually later, even in Mid Coast Maine.  Signs?  First, crocuses.

Those are from a morning walk with Ella last week.  At our house, the tulips have burst through the sodden ground, but they haven't bloomed yet.

Second, windjammers are being pulled from the water into dry dock to be spruced up for summer.  Down at Ulner's Point, three so far, including this one:

We had an early morning visitor to our deck twice last week.  Ella was very excited and really wanted to go out and "greet" her one-on-one.  

She left our house and found her way to our neighbor's back porch. Then plucked up insects from her front yard.  David said he saw this chicken stare down a cat, who backed away.  Not your run of the mill bird.

I've been under the weather for what seems like a long time but actually has been about a week or so.  Some congestion from a cold I had and thought I had whipped came back in my chest and I haven't been able to kick it.  It's left me feeling ... I guess I would say ... about 75%.  Saps my energy.  Saps mental clarity - well, that might be an exaggeration since that implies I HAD mental clarity to be sapped, but I guess I mean, it's made working difficult because it's made concentrating difficult.  (I actually feel ever so slightly better today, so anyone reading this, anyone who cares, keep those appendages crossed for me....)

 * * * * * *

The world endlessly devolves toward chaos.  How can I write the name "Freddie Gray" after having written the names of so many other young black men in this blog over the past months?  Like the crocuses and daffodils and other signs of spring, Baltimore bursts into protest.  "But, wait," I hear someone saying, "aren't you going to condemn the  'riots'?  Everyone has sympathy for the poor, for the discriminated against,  but 'rioting' is wrong!"  So goes the ubiquitous condemnation, including by our Afro-American president.  After all, if you somehow condone burning down a CVS, you might eventually think it's okay to burn down Wall Street!  Imagine that!  No, no!  This is America and private property is sacred.  (Let's not ask how long ago the young people doing the "rioting" themselves were considered to be "private property" in this great democracy of ours.)  

I think we white people, most especially we middle class white people, need to wake up.  Is it not obvious that in large part we have done as well as we have over the past several decades - since Ronald Reagan's "trickle down economics" - on the backs of the mass incarceration and related deepening impoverishment and exclusion of Black and Brown people from "normal" society?  I know all we white people would like to believe the myth that we have "earned" everything we have, that we "work hard" and so if our little piece of the pie has grown a little, we deserve it (and, logically, those who don't have a piece of the pie, not even a crumb, they must NOT have earned it, they must NOT deserve it!)  

What is it about a white person that keeps him or her from looking at a Freddie Gray or any of the young black men and women in the streets of Baltimore this week and asking the question, "What if that were me?  What if that were my child?  What if I lived in West Baltimore?  If my child grew up on those streets?   Are we all so smug, so entrenched in our own narrow self-regard that we think it wouldn't matter, that we would rise about it through "hard work" and "earning" it?  That even if we lived in a neighborhood with 50% unemployment, house after house abandoned and boarded up, where the stores have no fresh food and what they have is priced exorbitantly, where the infant mortality rate is higher than in most third world countries, where our brothers, our sons, our husbands are in prison or on parole or being illegally arrested and ending up dead - oh, no, not us, we wouldn't "riot" then?  Rioting is wrong.  We would peacefully protest.  We would "vote" in change.  

Right....  okay, enough ranting.  For now.  Not promising anything about next post.

* * * * * * *

I have a new concept to share, at least I think it's a new concept - yart!  Yart is the term David and I have given to "yard art".  You know what it is.  You've seen it.  It may be religious in nature.  It may be folksy.  It's not unique to Maine but it is very widespread up here.   I plan to start sharing photos of yart here.  And here's the first - and a very very widespread work of yart up here and particular pet peeve of mine:  the miniature faux well:

These miniature faux wells are plopped down all over town, all over Maine.  It's as if someone drove through with an 18-wheeler loaded down with miniature fake wells 10 or 15 years ago and hundreds of people thought, "Oh, how precious!" and plunked one down on their lawn.  Note also the second piece of yart behind the fake well - a multi-tiered fake art deco bird bath. (By the way, do you think one could legitimately abbreviate fake art deco as fart deco?)  

In time perhaps I'll branch out into gart - that obviously would be "garden art" - you know, the garden gnome, the granite turtle, ceramic deer...

What a world we live in - well, some of us live in.  

Not Freddie Gray.

Peace.

Ella

Okay, Susan, I have been poked... and this will be a LONG post!

I have no real excuse for how long it has been since I posted here.  Time passes.  Things happen.  Winter slowly, slowly, slowly drained away.  Huge piles of snow evaporated or melted leaving ugly grimy smaller piles of icy muck.  Days began warming, with nights staying below freezing.  Yet March in Maine is mostly winter.  Windjammers still in their shrink-wrap winter coats.  Ice in the harbor breaking up, but not gone:

Nights began warming.  We wake to an occasional inch of snow fall.  Finally our compost bin emerged from the snow.  The backyard cleared enough to permit walking to the bird feeders.  The raised bed garden was clear of snow, although the soil is still frozen.  It began to feel like spring might come.  Down at Ulmer's Point, the first windjammer was pulled from the water into dry dock to prepare her for summer work.  That means - notwithstanding the lingering piles of slushy ice, April is here:

Then came April 9th.  Here's what our backyard looked like that morning last week:

Even though David had to drag out the snow blower to clear the driveway, and we both shoveled around our cars and cleaned them off, within 24 hours most of this new snow was gone.















And so it goes.


Meanwhile, a quick trip to Connecticut and time with Helen, giving back a little of what she gives to so many.  Getting, suffering  and recovering from a bad cold, with David's kind support, then supporting him through the same.  Ukulele ensemble classes continuing (last one this coming Monday night).  David completed a wood carving class and he's now finishing his carving of a green-backed heron.  I submitted a poem to the Rockland Library's poetry contest; not particularly hopeful of being recognized this year, but it helps motivate me to keep working on poems.  David and I attended an evening of poetry and jazz sponsored by the new Belfast Poet Laureate.  Passover came - (and ends tonight.  The synagogue had a wonderful community seder.  David and I both volunteered at the Community Easter Dinner organized by the synagogue.  The room was beautiful, the volunteers hardworking and fun.  The food - donated by local restaurants and volunteers - seemingly endless.  We served about 120.

And so life in Mid Coast Maine goes on.  Here's my current selection of samples from The Free Press's "Calendar of Events."

• Blade Shearing School, Fri., April 17, 1-4 p.m., and Sat., April 18, 8 a.m.-3 p.m., Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, New Gloucester. Sheep-shearing experience recommended. $120 includes manual and lunch both days. Spectators welcome. FMI: UMaine.edu.

• Women's Chainsaw Safety Class, Sat. & Sun., April 18 & 19. Hidden Valley Nature Center. 16+. All levels. $150/$130 HVNC members. Scholarships available. FMI: andy@hvnc.org.

• "Joy in Everyday Life," Tues., April 21-May 19, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Brunswick Shambhala Center, 19 Mason St. FMI: shambhalabp.org.

• "Rightsizing Your Stuff," Weds., April 22, Picker Family Resource Center on Pen Bay Med Center campus. Free talk by organizer Diane Smith. FMI: 921-8950.

I must say, I am very tempted by the Women's Chainsaw Safety Class as well as the Joy in Everyday Life.  I'll bet there are some women who find joy every day in chainsaws!

This morning the sun is out.  Ella and I went down to the boat school's dock.  They've put the first piece of the floating dock in the water and their small sailboats are out.  That means Community Sailing classes are starting.  That means Spring is here.

Coming up:  David's niece, Sara,  graduates from nursing school first weekend in May.  Rock on, Sara!  My 5 year CT scan is scheduled for May 11th back in Connecticut.  I hesitate to write the next thing I'm thinking, because, I guess, of some deeply held and instinctual superstition about "tempting fate," but I'll do it.  According to my doctor, if this CT scan is clear, that's it - no more CT scans!  Five years, NED - no evidence of disease.  They don't say "cured" with cancer, at least not often.  Knowing those who suffer so much harsher outcomes than I have, even the very worse, like Helen's dear Kim who lost her battle with late stage ovarian cancer last week - may Kim's memory be a blessing for Helen, for Kim's daughter and the grandchild she got to meet and spend time with, and all Kim's family and friends, now and always - and a colleague whose 20 year old son has a tumor wrapped around an artery in his leg - thinking of what so many others must deal with,  I feel so grateful for these past 5 years, for my past and current health, for the beautiful place I live, for my family, for my friends.

Every day is a gift.  So I think ahead to that 5 year CT scan, but try not to dwell on it.  This day, this one, right now, here, today - that is all there is.  And it is beautiful.

Peace.

From snow to mud...

Since last post here we have turned some kind of corner.  It's March.  The 10 and 12 foot piles of snow along both sides of the driveway have turned to ice and, like the Wicked Witch of the West, are melting away, inch by inch, day by day.  Our little back porch is clear, other than a two foot long icy mud-specked smear.  The entire top of the compost bin is visible.  The Adirondack chairs again are poking wooden backs and arms through the gritty slush.  More interesting, birds are singing everywhere.  They know - spring will come.  And, of course,  mud is the early spring harbinger.  With the amount of snow we had this winter, I envision mammoth amounts of mud to come.  It's 32 degrees but tonight we're supposed to get a mix of snow and rain.  That is March in Midcoast Maine.

The Intermediate ukulele class that David and I were attending has ended.  The Bay Chamber Ukulele Ensemble class I am in has 4 more classes to go.  We're discussing where we will perform the pieces we have been learning when class ends.   David is half way through a 6 week course in wood carving, making a Green Backed Heron.  Already he has managed to bring its lovely curves out of a hunk of wood.  The Rockland Public Library's annual poetry contest deadline for submitting poems is April 7th.  I'm thinking about it.  It seems unlikely that I could repeat the surprising luck I had the first year we moved here (when I was given 2nd place) but it keeps me thinking poetry.  I am half way through reading a book of the collected poems of Wendell Berry, alternating with other books, including right now "Dreaming Me - From Baptist to Buddhist, One Woman's Spiritual Journey" by Jan Willis, who is just 2 years older than I, grew up in segregated Alabama, went to Cornell and is a scholar and professor of religion at Wesleyan.

As I approach my 65th birthday this summer, I have begun to receive Medicare related mailings from what seem like hundreds of companies suddenly interested in my health, physical and financial.  In fact, assuming no untoward events, I AM counting down days to "retirement," although I have not made this known at work.  For the first time in my life since age 18, I intend to spend at least weeks and months, if not years, without the obligation to get up 5 days a week and and work for a pay check.  It is both thrilling and scary as hell.   After decades of working 9-5 (and often 8-8) to take care of my children and myself, pull out of debt, and eventually actually save money - to buy a house and put something toward "retirement" - now I am face to face with an entirely new stage of life in which I will be spending the money I worked so hard and so long to save instead of saving it...  and that is bone-chillingly frightening.

But meanwhile, here in Midcoast Maine, as we head into spring and toward our beautiful if brief fling with summer, and here's what's happening.  I am posting more items than usual this time, because ... well, because they seem to so represent to me what it's like to live here.  (Does it seem we have a population fairly equally divided among the elderly, hippy-back-to-nature types and working farmer-fisher persons?  I think that's about right!)

• Talk on Wild Bird Rehab, noon, Tuesday Talks at Merryspring Nature Center. By Laura Suomi-Lecker of Avian Haven in Freedom. $5/members free.

• "Diet and Dementia: What Works and What Doesn't," noon-1:30 p.m., Lunch and Learn Series at The Lincoln House, 22 River Rd., Newcastle. Registered dietitian Louise Spate speaks. Free lunch provided. RSVP: 563-3038 or Kacie@one2one.org.

• "Permaculture: A Vision for Regenerative Food Systems," Belfast Library. Belfast Garden Club biz meeting 1 p.m. Talk by certified permaculture designer Jesse Watson 2 p.m. Free. Open to all.

• Free Laundry 101 Workshop, 5 p.m., Clean Bee Laundry, Camden. Learn laundry basics and stain removal. If you have questions or topics you want covered, mention them when you register: 236-2530 or info@CleanBeeLaundry.com.

• "Invasive Forest Insect Outreach," 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Knox-Lincoln Cooperative Extension, 377 Manktown Rd., Waldoboro. Learn how to ID, report on and spread info about invasive insects. Free. Registration: 596-2040 or hildy@knox-lincoln.org.

• "Using Herbs to Find Comfort in Aging," 1 p.m., Camden Library. Jillian Kelsey-Rose presents the free program in the Quarry Hill's Adventures in Living Well Series. You must register: 921-6116.

• 11th Annual Maine Grass Farmers Network Grazing Conference, Sat., March 21, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Kennebec Valley Community College, Fairfield. FMI: 568-4142 or umaine.edu/livestock/mgfn/conference.

• "Poisonous Mushrooms in Maine and How to Avoid Them," Sat., March 21, 2 p.m., Camden Library. Talk by Greg Marley, hosted by Maine Mycological Association.

• Beginning Blacksmithing Course, six weeks on Tues. & Thurs. starting Tues., March 24, 6-9 p.m., Curran Homestead Living History Farm and Museum, 372 Fields Pond Rd., Orrington. Limited to six. $385. Registration: 745-4426 or irv@BangorLettershop.com.

• Free Varicose Vein Screening, Weds., March 25, 5-7 p.m., Picker Family Resource Center on Pen Bay Med Center campus. Registration: 921-5744.

• Finnish for Beginners, Sat., Apr. 11 & 25 and May 9 & 23, 1-4 p.m., Jura Hall (beneath the Finnish Church), Rte. 131, South Thomaston. Ages 10 and up welcome. Marja-Leena Bailey teaches. $120; $100 for additional family members. FMI: gifford7tree@gmail.com or 989-1971.

• Camden Shakespeare Festival Seeks Volunteers, to help with performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth in Camden Amphitheatre, July 30-Aug. 16. FMI: info@CamdenShakespeare.org.

Every morning I awake and say "modah ahi... thank you ... " To whom do I say this?  I suppose to the God of Abraham who is the God I choose not to believe in mostly (except for moments I find I do or at least may believe).  I say thank you for the grace that is my life.  For my children, my partner, my family, friends, community, for health,  for birdsong, for sunrise, like this one from this past week:

And I ask for peace.  Peace. Peace.  Far and near.  May the memory of Tony Robinson be a blessing for his family and his community.  Peace be upon Tony Robinson, his family and all of us.

What's happening in Mid Coast Maine AND 10 Days in Photos

Here's what's going on up here (can't imagine why you don't jump in your car and come for a visit) - I'm including more events than usual because I just couldn't help myself:

• Open House at Apprenticeshop, Fri., Feb. 27, 4:30-6:30 p.m. The Rockland boat school celebrates its renovated space and more. Refreshments. FMI: 594-1800.
• "Multi-Generational Communities: Aging in Place," Fri. & Sat., Feb. 27 & 28, Baptist Church, Damariscotta. Day-and-a-half training session with experts. $125 includes coffee breaks, lunch and materials. Scholarships available. FMI: CommunityInstitute.org. Public talk Fri., Feb. 27, 7 p.m.,"Living Longer and Better" by Nick Buettner of The Blue Zones Project.
• Vermiculture Workshop, Sat., Feb. 28, 9 a.m.-noon, Merryspring Nature Center, Camden. Led by Jock Robie of Mainely Worm Bins. $30/$25 members. You must register: 236-2239, info@merryspring.org.

• Identifying First Editions: The Treasures You Might Find on Your Bookshelf," Tues., Mar. 3, 7 p.m., Camden Library. Craig Olson of Artisan Books & Bindery gives the talk.
• 2015 Bee School, six Tuesdays starting Mar. 3, 6-8:30 p.m., American Legion Hall, Thomaston. Knox Lincoln County Beekeepers offers instruction, demos, hands-on learning and weekend visits to member apiaries. $50 includes textbook and one-year KLCB membership. Registration: BeeSchool@klcbee.com or leave a message at 273-3937.

com.
• Maine Sea Goddess Applications Available, for 68th annual Maine Lobster Festival Sea Goddess Pageant. Coronation July 29. Must be under 22, high school or GED grad., and Maine resident. FMI: 594-4559 or MaineLobsterFestival.com.

• Sunday Night Salsa, Sundays, 7-8:30 p.m., Studio RED, 143 Rankin St., Rockland. With Nohora Estes and Heuris Matos. All welcome. FMI: 593-7914.
• Tapping Group, first Sunday, 3-4:30 p.m., High Mountain Hall, Camden. Suggested donation $8-$25. FMI: 975-5325.

Although I wouldn't mind being younger, I'm glad I'm not 22.  There would be so much pressure to apply to be the Maine Sea Goddess.  I just couldn't handle it.

And here, in photos, is a glimpse at our last 10 days:

These last 2 are from this morning:

Finally, people ask me how much snow we've gotten.  Here are 2 photos that tell the story.  First, the beautiful compost bin that David built - photo taken in the summer.

Second, the same bin, photo taken 2 days ago.  Since then, we've had 6 more inches of snow so that right side of the bin peeking through the snow in this picture is now completely buried.

More snow tomorrow night into Sunday.  It's okay, I moved to Maine, not Miami, and in July - during our week of summer - it will be gorgeous here!

Sending warm thoughts out to away and back.  And, in particular, sending love to Helen.

Peace, peace, far and near.

Cold... how it feels...

I've been thinking about the weather.  It's hard not to, there's been so much of it here in Mid Coast Maine, and it's been so intense.  We must have more than 35 inches of snow on the ground just from the last 2 weeks, and it's stayed cold, so many of the streets - other than the main roads - although plowed, still have a layer of snow on them.  

Right now, at 8:30 in the morning, it is a balmy 15 degrees.  Earlier when Ella and I went for our walk, it was 11 degrees, and I was surprised to discover that 11 degrees could feel pretty good.  That's in comparison to last night, when it was -4.  

So here's what I've learned so far about living with cold weather in Mid Coast Maine:

• Invest in companies that make wool socks;
• Invest in companies that make good creams for rough, cracked heels;
• Invest in companies that make cleat thingies that attach to the bottoms of shoes/boots for walking on ice;
• Be prepared to wear long Johns from the winter solstice until the ides of March;
• Be prepared to wear a fleece hat every single damn day; consider one with ear flaps for single digit days with wind, for below zero days and in the event of blizzards; 
• Have at least 3 pairs of warm fleece/wool gloves, maybe 4 - one for fall, one for normal winter, one that is waterproof for shoveling snow, and leather mittens lined with wool inserts for almost every day from December 21-February 28; 
• If the temperature is in double digits - from 10 degrees to 30 degrees - three layers on top - long sleeved shirt, fleece with hood and winter coat - and two on bottom - long Johns and pants - will be adequate; warm gloves should be enough (mittens not needed), and a scarf isn't really necessary, unless the wind is blowing; 
• If temperature is in single digits or if wind blowing, add scarf and mittens; 
• If below zero, add another top layer - think Michelin Man - and consider two pairs of long Johns, especially if below zero AND wind is blowing; 
• Anything over 30 degrees feels downright warm so don't over dress (okay to wear the long Johns when walking or working outside, otherwise leave them in the drawer);
• Don't forget to have your mud boots ready - we might slide right from -4 to 38 and Maine mud is deep, dark and dank!

That's what I've learned so far in my 2-1/2 winters in Mid Coast Maine.  We're expecting more snow this week - tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday - a total of only another 12 - 15 inches, but spread out over several days, shouldn't be too bad.  At 3:00 am this morning, the City of Rockland decided it would be a good time to send the plows out to clear the sidewalks on our street, and this time, they sent along a big dump truck in which the snow they plowed up was thrown, presumably to be taken away somewhere and piled into a mountain (skiing or sledding anyone?).  I appreciate the thought, but really, 3:00 am?

I promised my grandson I would make him and his brother snow men after the recent snowfalls, but the first two big snows were too light, powdery (made shoveling easier!) and wouldn't stick together.  Then we got the latest 5-6 inches and it was heavier and wetter.  So, I made Snow Ninjas for the boys - red for Cello's favorite Ninjago ninja, Kai, and blue for Cachao's, whose name I forget right now.  But they were tired Ninjas, so I caught them resting in our Adirondack chairs:

Peace from sunny double-digit Mid Coast Maine.