I remarked to Lynnea as we walked to the car from school that the recent warm days and fresh wet snowfall made perfect material for building a snowman or snowfort.  She asked “Can we build a snowfort when we get home, Dad?”…

I have fond memories of one winter when my Dad and I built a fort in the snow.  We had recently acquired as Christmas gifts a pair of plastic molds for making snow bricks.  They made bricks about 12″ x 6″ x 6″.  With them we built a fortress in the backyard about 6 feet high and put a wooden roof on it with additional bricks holding it down making the walls look crenellated.

Lynnea was keen to give it a try.  Using Lynnea's sled, we flattened out an area about 6″ by 4″ to be the fortress floor.  I didn't have any brick makers, but that was no problem.  I figured I could improvise something.  I retrieved an old empty “Icy Melt” bucket from the garage and began making large cylindrical bricks with it.  It worked great!

As I put down the bricks Lynnea and I would get shovelfulls of fresh sticky snow and pack them against the walls and into the spaces between the bricks.  It acted like mortar, holding the bricks in place.  The walls got thick and smooth and very solid.

It took about two hours to put together, and we began losing the light as the fort progressed because the sun was setting.  We only did two layers of bricks.  I didn't want to build the fort taller than Neya, as eventually it would fall over due to melt.  Two layers only comes up to about her belly button.

As the second layer of bricks went on we packed even more snow around the base and up to the new layer, giving the outside a sort of plateau-like appearance.

I lost count, but by my estimate there are about 44 bricks of snow in the completed fort.  I was really surprised that Lynnea stuck with it and worked on the fort until it was done.  Usually Lynnea gets ideas for projects but gets bored or tired with them before we finish, and quits.  She said to me “Dad, I like doing family things with you.”

Once the second layer was on and snow was all packed in and around all the bricks, Lynnea started trying to make turrets with her fancy shaped yellow pail.  I thought they looked nice but she seemed to be having trouble making them.  We definitely wanted the walls to look crenellated, so eventually we settled on making the merlons out of packed lumps of snow.  That didn't look too bad!

After all that work, we were completely bushed.  Lynnea remarked that she wasn't sure what to do with the fort now that she had it.    A short snowball fight ensued and Lynnea discovered just how useful a snow fort can be.

We went inside into the washroom and stripped off all of our wet things.  There was a basket of freshly dried clothes there so we were immediately able to change into something comfortable.  The wet clothes went right into the dryer and then I settled down to do some work while Lynnea went off to play.

About a half hour later I caught her looking out the back window.  She told me she was checking to make sure the fort was still there.  I told her it would not melt for at least a couple days and she would be able to enjoy it in the morning.

Overnight the temperature dropped below freezing and the fort got even more solid.  I'm sore as hell this morning from all the heavy lifting and packing, and from all the crouching and bending over to work on the walls.  But I am quite satisfied… 'cause Neya loves it.  Being a Dad is hard sometimes, but there are always moments that make it worthwhile…