Making The Most Of The Snow

By Kendra Bobowick

One of the snow figures toppled toward to the ground after standing too long in the sun. Another snowy assembly that included an old hat, worn mittens, a bicycle helmet, and twigs also began to sag in Monday’s 40-degree weather.

Following the heavy snowfall on Friday, February 22, Vodola sisters Mary, 12, Rebecca, 11, twins Angela and Veronica, 7, and Joanna, 10, all bundled up after the late-winter storm that covered the past weekend with enough snow for a snow dragon as big as a car, and a row of snowmen that the girls arranged and dressed with their leftover gloves and scarves.

Pulling on a warm jacket Monday before stepping outside to patch up her artwork, Rebecca thought about her idea for the dragon. “I was trying to make a monster,” she said. At the top of the driveway looking out across the cul-de-sac was a triangular mound of snow piled as high as the sisters could reach on tiptoe. Where a snout must have been over the weekend was a sheer face where the dragon’s features had fallen with Monday’s warmer temperatures. Still visible was a row of spikes traveling the dragon’s spine toward the tip of its tail.

Across the drive were snowballs rolled into place, stacked, and dressed for the season. The row of figures drooped toward the ground where Rebecca and Mary tried to boost them up by packing snow back onto them earlier this week.

Smiling at Rebecca, Mary explained that they “do this all the time.”

“Rebecca is obsessed,” Mary said.

Her sister answered, “I like to make lots of things out of snow.”

Mary said, “We have made a snow castle, a snow volcano…” In line with their snow sculpting, Mary has an interest in being an artist and Rebecca, after thinking a moment, said she would like to illustrate books.