A Great Day For A Snowman.

It snowed today, and Cheryl and I went to Muscatine anyway.   We figured that we had a few errands to run, AND we wanted to check out the Mississippi after a snow.   Mostly to see if they plowed the sidewalks of the trail. And both of us simply needed to get away from the shop.  Today was going to be an official "Shop Free" day where we do not think about Stockings or Etsy or anything business. 

Well,  the Sidewalks were clear on the Riverside trail.  But it was a little windy and snowy.   Cheryl limited the length of the run because we had other things we had to attend to.   Plus... easing into the running regiment again should be done slowly.   We finished 2 miles and set out to do some shopping.

We did our shopping and arrived home, just in time for the snow to stop and form a good packing snow.   A great time to make a Snowman. 

If you remember last time,  The neighbor kid shouted out helpful hints on how to make my snowman look really good. I challenged him to a duel, but he made the excuse that his Mom would not let him outside.   ( sounds like a cop out, if you ask me.)  Well today,  he managed to get outside to be part of the process.  

Not really.   When I asked him if he wanted to make a snowman, he told me he had no idea how to make one.   When I offered to help,  he refused!  insisting on throwing snowballs at me instead.   What a little brat!

Eventually we got into a snowball fight.   I was at a disadvantage since I have an old war injury to my shoulder...  ( I jumped on a live hand grenade and saved a bunch of people... No biggy!  But I did damage my shoulder so I can no longer throw an overhand snowball...  Or grenade!)  So I was lobbing underhand snowballs at him while he ran away and squeaked like a chicken.  

Eventually,  I had to go inside.   I figured I had run him to exhaustion by this time so he was bound to get bored.  But instead,  another neighbor kid came over and decided to take up the charge to play snowball fight.  I took the opportunity to duck inside and warm up.  

But of course!  It did not take long for them to single out the snow man and push him down.   Cheryl was kind of mad.   I was disappointed.  I figured the snowman had a limited lifetime anyway, but it was disappointing that all the neighbor kids know how to do is destroy things.  I guess that is one of the genetic defects the human male has.  ( I know I destroyed plenty of things when I was young too...) But somewhere along the way,  I evolved to a builder/creator.   Perhaps this will happen to him in the future. 

In the mean time,  I think he obviously was jealous of my snowman making skills and could not compete.   That makes me feel a little better.   I only like competition when I know I can easily win. Does that make me a bad person?  Well, before answering that,  just consider that my competition was a 6 year old kid... who eventually destroyed my snowman.   I think I win the moral high ground  in this case.  And I don't want to hear anything about age discrimination.  Especially since he has youth on his side!  

I'm sure the snow will either freeze up tonight or eventually melt.  I doubt I will be making another snowman this year.  not if the local brat brigade are going to continue to knock them down.   I guess the song was "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" has that same dilemma, And I'm not alone with my struggle with Winter vandals!  At least I got the photos for the blog before the destruction.