My favorite was, oddly enough, also probably the hardest winter I experienced, as a kid. We woke up, one morning, in December '77, to find we couldn't see out the windows, for the snow. Thankfully, the back door opened in, because otherwise we'd have had to break a window, to get out*. My dad, brothers, & I started tunneling, in shifts, to get around to the front, where the grain for the (6) horses &
milk cow was (temporarily) stored. Much of what had encapsulated the house - maybe 30% - was drift, but the rest was just how it landed. The big old station wagon was barely a bump in the snow, and we didn't even bother with that, because the driveway and roads were hip-deep, in the low parts - even in the Lower Peninsula of MI, there wouldn't be school for more than 2 weeks. Thankfully, it wasn't horribly cold, so we were able to keep going with minimal breaks to warm up & eat.
Halfway to getting onto the front porch, for the
feed, we split into pairs- my dad & the older brother, John, and my younger brother Jim was with me, and we began full-out shoveling, for all we were worth, because the day was already half over, and the animals hadn't been fed, and poor Judy could be heard from her stall in the barn, bellowing in pain, from needing to be milked. Finally, when my dad was just at the porch door and Jim and I were less than halfway to the barn, an idea hit me, and I hollered up to my dad, "Aren't the sleds on the front porch, too?" He caught on right away, put the feed bags on sleds, and pushed them down the hill, toward us. We had to jump out of our path, to catch them, but that was the most fun we'd had all day - and made it go faster, for not having to climb the hill and carry the feed. We needed an extra
bucket for the milking, by the time we got down to the barn, because it was very nearly time for the evening milking.
Over the next couple days, we tweaked the paths, widening them, making it easier to get the sleds up and down the hill, which was good, because at about day 4 the temps dropped, the (very small)
pond froze solid, and we had to start hauling
water from the house to the animals. That was a LOT of water, so we were super glad for the sleds. There was truly accidental sloshing (after all, the more we sloshed, the more trips we had to make), and the paths got icy and hazardous - but even more fun, for sledding!
We always sold our extra milk (even a family of 8 has extra milk, when the cow gives 5 - 6gallons/day!), but the family we sold it to had no means to come and get it, in that snow, so the horses started earning their keep. Every few days, 1 parent and 1 of us 3 older kids would make the 6 mile round trip, around the local lake, to take milk to them. The first trip out, my dad and brother discovered that someone had been on the road with snowmobiles, so there was already a beaten path that made it safe for the horses.
It really was hard work, and the house required a lot of
firewood, too - but we played just as hard! We made snow cream, built snow families, including snow livestock, dug tunnels & snow forts, had snowball fights - even the horses were targets, and got us back, by kicking snow at us. We baked cookies, drank gallons of hot chocolate and homemade eggnog (duck eggs and fresh, whole milk! I still make it, like that! YUM!!), played board
games and card
games, told stories, and snuggled up in our bean bag chairs. We listened to music and danced, played the old electric organ (badly) and sang (mostly off key) and just got very silly - all 8 of us. My littlest sister was only 2, and my older brother and I were only 13. It was one of the hardest winters of my life - but definitely the best one I had, growing up.
*Edited to add: the 'house' was a pair of ancient single-wide trailers, that my dad put
side by side, and cut holes to make a big archway to connect them. The windows were high, small ones with louvered glass panes, and the storm windows were bolted on from the outside.