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THE GREAT SNOW FORT OF 1999
BY EDGAR, AGE 9

Hi! My name is Edgar and I live in Illinois, near Chicago. Last winter on New Year's Day we got a BLIZZARD. It snowed almost 2 FEET. The TV said about 22 inches. Me and my two brothers, Andrew and Ray, built the BIGGEST SNOW FORT EVER in our front yard. It even had a TUNNEL. My mom took the pictures. The orange numbers in the corner are the date. Mom's camera does that by itself.

I'm making this page at my cousin's house because he has a scanner. It is August and it is 90 degrees. I miss the snow.

DAY 1: IT STARTS
New Year's Day, January 1

It started snowing in the morning and it did NOT stop. We watched out the picture window all day. Dad kept saying "this is a big one." By bedtime you couldn't see the sidewalk. I was so excited I couldn't sleep.

DAY 2: SHOVELING
January 2

It snowed some more. Dad and Andrew and Ray shoveled the driveway. I helped. (Andrew says I made snow angels and did not help. That is not true. I did both.) The snow came up to my waist. Every time they shoveled, they threw it on the big pile at the end of the driveway.

DAY 3: THE STREET AND THE DRIFT
January 3
Our street the morning after the blizzard, everything buried in snow and the parked cars turned into white lumps
Our street in the morning. See the cars? They are just LUMPS!

In the morning our whole street was buried. Mom took this picture from our front step. Nobody could drive anywhere. Then the snowplow came and pushed all the snow from the street up on the pile at the end of our driveway. Now it was a MOUNTAIN. It was taller than my dad. Andrew said "we are building a fort in that." So we did.

Andrew with a shovel, Ray with a yellow sand pail and Edgar on his knees in a red snowsuit digging into the huge drift
Digging in! Andrew with the shovel, Ray with the bucket, and me in the red snowsuit.

Andrew dug with the snow shovel. Ray filled the sand bucket. I dug with my hands. We dug a hole into the side of the mountain until it was big enough to sit in.

DAY 4: THE FORT!!!
January 4

NO SCHOOL! It was too snowy and too cold. It was so cold your nose hairs froze when you breathed in. We didn't care. We worked on the fort ALL DAY. We made the walls out of snow bricks (see how below) and Andrew and Ray dug the tunnel all the way through the mountain. Dad gave us his old red bandanna and a broom handle for the flag. Mom made hot chocolate three times.

The finished snow fort: walls of bucket-shaped snow bricks against the big drift, a round tunnel hole, a red flag on a stick, and the three brothers standing beside it
THE GREAT SNOW FORT! See the bucket bricks? And the tunnel? And the flag?

Here it is! That's us standing next to it. Andrew is the tallest, then me in the middle, then Ray. The tunnel goes in the big hole and comes out on the other side by the driveway. You have to crawl.

Edgar in a blue knit hat with snow on it grinning out of the round tunnel opening
ME IN THE TUNNEL!!!

This is me inside the tunnel. My snowsuit got soaked so I had to wear Andrew's old green coat. It was a little big. Inside the tunnel it is quiet and blue and it smells like snow. I would have lived in there if Mom let me.

DAY 5: THE SNOWBALL WAR
January 5

The kids next door, Bobby and John and their big sister Colleen, built a fort too. Theirs was smaller. (It's true.) We had a SNOWBALL WAR across the yards. Ray made the snowballs and stacked them in a pyramid and I was the runner. Andrew says we won. Colleen says it was a tie. John got hit in the face by accident and cried, which is why we have Rule #3 now.

THE END OF THE FORT

The fort lasted almost 3 weeks because it stayed SO cold. Then one day it got warm and rained and the roof of the tunnel caved in. Nobody was in it. (Mom made sure.) We were sad but Dad said it was a good fort and a good fort doesn't last forever. Then it froze again and the mountain turned into ice and we slid down it.

SNOW FORT RULES
  1. Andrew is the boss of the fort.
  2. No ice balls. Ice balls are not snowballs.
  3. No throwing at faces.
  4. Little kids get a turn in the tunnel. (That doesn't mean me. I'm not little.)
  5. Nobody goes in the tunnel alone. (Mom's rule.)
  6. No yellow snow. Ha ha.
  7. To get in you need the password. The password is a secret.

HOW TO MAKE SNOW BRICKS

You need: a sand bucket (a beach one), sticky snow, and mittens that don't get wet.

  1. Fill the bucket with snow.
  2. Pack it down HARD with your fist. Harder than that.
  3. Flip it over where you want the brick.
  4. Tap on the bottom of the bucket.
  5. Lift it up slowly. Ta-da! A snow brick!
  6. Put the next one right next to it and squish snow in the cracks.

Ray's tip: If the brick falls apart the snow is too powdery. Wait till it's warmer, or pack it more.
Dad's tip: Spray a little water on the walls at night and in the morning they're HARD as rock.


COUNTDOWN TO WINTER!!!
116 DAYS
from August 28, when I made this page, to the first day of winter, December 22

Next winter we are going to build one even BIGGER. With TWO tunnels.


You are snow fort visitor number
000386

Did you build a snow fort? Tell me about it!
[email protected]

Last updated August 28, 1999