Mount Airy Forest--A Winter Wonderland

Phillip, Archie and I went out on Sunday afternoon to get some wintery shots of Mount Airy Forest. I haven't been hiking since mid-December, so it was really, REALLY good to get out there again. Right now, the only good time to hike in Mount Airy is when the ground is frozen. Otherwise, it's a slushy, muddy gooey mess, just like the rest of Cincinnati in the winter time. But when the ground is frozen, there's usually ice on the ground, which makes navigating the hills a bit of a challenge. That's my excuse for not exercising during the past three months and I'm sticking to it. Also, I've been dying to get some wintery, snowy pictures of Mount Airy but hadn't up til now. I figured what better time to get snow pictures than just being on the heels of the 'Blizzard of 2008'?

The snow was a different consistency from Saturday...it was just beginning to melt, but not watery or anything. It was PERFECT for snowballs. You could just scoop it up and not have to work at packing it too much. It formed perfect hard snowballs with the first scoop! The snowballs were flying as we hiked our way through the trails. The forest was just gorgeous with all the snow. It was a beautiful day, sunny...not too cold or too windy. Here is a sampling of the many pictures I took.

The snow consistency was so interesting...when we laid down in the snow, it made perfect imprints of our bodies...the wrinkles and stitches of our clothing and everything! This is an imprint of Phillip:

We laid all over the hillside and made lots of 'people bodies' in the snow. It looked like a whole bunch of people had been there, instead of just us. Archie made lots of children snow people.

We had so much fun. Many, many snowballs were thrown along the way and it was really neat to see the forest with snow covering it. I could've hiked for another hour or so, but some people began to whine about being hungry. And it wasn't Archie. But he took his cue and began whining also. To be fair, I'm the only one of us who owns a pair of snow boots (thanks, Mom!), so the boys were getting cold, wet feet and were getting tired. And hungry, apparently.

The snow has been melting rather quickly this week. It is currently Tuesday night and there is barely any snow left in the yard. Our temperatures are going up into the fifties, thankfully. I enjoyed our "Blizzard" very much, but after the sledding is over and the last snowball is thrown for the day, I'm done with snow. Perhaps we will make it to sixty degrees toward the end of the week. I hope. The daffodils and tulips are beginning to peek out of the ground and I am looking forward to their arrival very much!