Brown: Fun is where you find it

The snow falls, the water freezes, and there’s lots of ice to break. But the cold can bring more than just work and in between water tanks, it’s easy to run into a good time.

Truth is, ground covered in snow (or mostly covered, it doesn’t take as much as you might think) is considerably more fun than ground not covered in snow. Especially if you happen to have a semi-slick piece of something (such as an old pickup bedliner), a rope, some fellow farm-kids, and something to pull it all through the snow.

Audra Brown

Put the sled behind, with the rope in between, and all pile on the pseudo-sleigh. Over the whitened wheat fields and through the muddy roads, hours of entertainment lie ahead with only the occasional pause to switch positions, re-orient the sled, or get a little work done.

The particular devices put together to create such fun vary, but the basic idea remains unchanged. Sliding is fun.

Even when there isn’t any snow, there is still sliding to be done. Out among the brush-covered sandhills, there can be found the occasional bare-faced mound. Those snow discs are great for sliding down or for the more experienced sand-slider, a cheap snowboard makes things a lot more exciting, if you don’t fall down.

Sand isn’t as cold as snow or ice, but it’s a little more lingering when it gets in your clothes in a crash.

But there is one thing far worse, as far as cleanliness is concerned, the true demonstration of how far a farm-kid will go, when there isn’t a sandhill, and there isn’t any snow.

It’s big and tall, and nice and steep on the sides, and can be found quite often near fields and recently cleaned corrals. It’s also green:

Snowboarding down the sides of a manure pile.

Yes, it’s smelly, but it’s more fun than most of the other ways you get dirty on a farm.

Fun is where you find it.

Have a happy New Year.

Audra Brown always keeps a sacrificial snowboard in the back of the pickup. Contact her at:

[email protected]