93. Snowed In

Snow at Blackberry Farm

As a child in India, my only experience of snow came from Snow at Blackberry Farm, my favorite of our four Blackberry Farm picturebooks. In it, Mr and Mrs. Nibble and their three little bunnies get completely snowed in and the other animals work together to dig them out.

Snowed In

I loved that book, and must have pored over it hundreds of times, drinking in every detail of the richly-colored illustrations.

Mrs. Nibbles’ smiling face

The story ends with all the animals sitting round the Nibbles’ kitchen table over a feast of freshly baked bread, home-made jam, and piping hot tea.

Hungry after all that digging

I didn’t actually experience snow firsthand until I was fourteen, when we lived in England for a year and a half, while waiting for our Green Cards to America. There—in the London area at least—three inches of snow was  enough to bring everything to a standstill.  In the States, the hardy New Englanders prided themselves on taking snow in their stride, and it took a really big snow to interfere with business as usual.  But the Blizzard of ’78 was a really big snow, and my first experience of a New England winter as it might have been in days of yore.

When it began to snow in earnest that sixth of February nearly 33 years ago, Andrew set out from our cabin in Concord to rescue Eve, who was certainly going to have difficulty driving back from work. Several hours (and several inches) later they finally got home, snow-covered but safe, and we all hunkered down for the duration, building up the fire in the woodstove and stoking it  throughout the night. In the morning I was thrilled to find the snow all the way up to the windows of the cabin and drifted up high against the front door, looking just as it had in my Blackberry Farm picturebook.  We were well and truly snowed in and would remain so for almost a week.

We met more of our neighbors in that week than ever before or since. That day we received a telephone call from Ara and Susie, who lived at the top of our road no more than a quarter of a mile away, inviting us to dinner the next evening. After bundling up in every item of clothing we owned and all looking like the Michelin man, we set out, each equipped with a snow shovel. It took us more than an hour to shovel a narrow passageway between our house and theirs, but how delightful to arrive at last and be welcomed into a warm home with a hot, comforting meal. Although we were fond of Ara and Susie, such was the nature of our busy lives that it took a 100-year blizzard to get us together.

The Blizzard of ’78 was also the only time when the neighbors joined together to help one another.  The day after our dinner outing, we trudged back over the hill to find old Mr. Fox’s bungalow completely snowed in, the only sign of life a wisp of smoke from the chimney. Spry old Foxy, as our neighbor Ginny called him, was a typical Yankee, self-sufficient to a fault, never one to ask for help. After every snowstorm he was to be found digging himself out, refusing all offers of assistance, and insisting that his diminutive  “half-pint shovel”—a square-point shovel with the end cut off—prevented him from over-exerting himself. But that day he was nowhere to be seen, so we joined a group of the surrounding neighbors and shoveled a path up to his front door.

Mr. Fox answered the door with alacrity and thanked us for our efforts and concern, but said that he was well-provisioned and needed no further help. His words were confirmed by the half-eaten bowl of soup on the tray table next to the well-worn armchair pulled up to the pot-belly stove in his dark but cozy living room. Mr. Fox was just fine, thank you, so we withdrew to allow him to finish his meal in peace.

Happily snowed in, January 2011

A third of a century later, this has been Massachusetts’ snowiest January on record. Happily snowed in on the fourth snow day since the university opened up for the new term just a week ago, I have just made a pot of tea and a big batch of scones. If anyone wants to shovel a path to our door I’ll gladly put the kettle on again.

Tea, scones, and blackberry jam

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