Snow Fort

We ended up getting about eight inches of wet, heavy, persimmon-spoon snow last night. So the first order of business this morning was shoveling the walk, tossing a few snowballs at one another, and building a snowman.

Then Mike & Hunter decided to build a snow fort in the backyard. Of course, it should come as no surprise that a fort designed by Mike is going to be over-engineered to the nth degree. This one is built of bricks made from compressed snow -- we used an old broken toolbox as a brick-making mold. Here's the first couple of rows laid down in a horseshoe pattern.

We all got involved in the massive construction project. We took turns shoveling snow, tamping it down to make the bricks, and patting loose snow all around the rows as the "mortar" between the bricks.

Near the top, Mike began angling the rows to get the top to curve inward. The top doesn't close all the way like an igloo, but has a narrow chimney-like opening at the top. The finished fort is somewhere around five and a half feet tall.

Thanks for the awesome fort, Dad!