Good thing I like to write early in the morning, while the snow is still fairly fresh and clean and white. Otherwise, my poetic words might not come out quite as pretty.
I used to believe that our little plot of land here in our section of the state was naturally sandy and loaded with rocks, and while much of it had been farmland, most of the topsoil had also been scraped off and sold. So I performed my semi-annual Miracle of the Soil (I can do that ’cause I’m Catholic) and introduced about five hundred pounds of peat moss and some lime into it on a regular (well, semi-annual I guess) basis.
But after living here almost fifteen years of winters I have solved a mystery I didn’t know was lurking underneath this quiet little town; sand is not natural to the area, but is the result of years of overly enthusiastic town crew snowplows who spend the first snow day constantly spreading it on the roads, and the second day plowing it off and spraying it ten feet onto front lawns. From there it migrates to the rest of the yard and eventually, the land rises, the trees do their damnedest to grown tall as fast as they can or smother, and people just eventually add yet another story on their homes.
I always wonder why, in our little ranch, the cellar goes down three levels…
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology