Truly ‘cool’ igloo

Seasons have their timed events, exquisite moments when the sap begins to run or raspberries are at their ripest. Miss these, and you miss out on some of the best that nature has to offer and the pure pleasure of being in the right place at the right time. Rarer still are those found moments of time when I have nothing more pressing to do than take advantage of a snowy afternoon with my children and we decide to do something extraordinary together. Such was the case last week when a few inches of wet snow kept them home from school, and my son reminded me of an offhand promise that if we got the right sort of snow we would make an igloo. I had never constructed one before and it was on my list of things to try one of these days. Now the moment had come, and so I determined to give it a try.The basic technique requires a sturdy plastic container, more or less rectangular and a bit larger than a shoebox. I found one of these in use as a storage bin for a half-finished Erector Set, and it served us well as a form for the blocks of compressed snow we required. We then marked out a rough circle in the snow in the side yard on the north side of the house, where it would be more sheltered from the winter sun. It took about 16 snow blocks to complete the lowest course, leaving a gap for the tunnel entrance, and we staggered the next layer, overlapping the inner space by about a third of the width of the block, and packing in the spaces with more snow.It was at this point that we noticed a tendency for the blocks of snow to lean in and the incomplete circle of our wall to become less and less stable. We shifted our attention to the tunnel, building it up and curving in the walls with a strong capping block to keep them together. After that, the igloo walls went up much more easily, though by this time must have filled and packed and filled nearly 100 blocks and were running out of snow in the neighborhood of the igloo.We attracted a couple of neighborhood kids along the way, though it was less a case of Tom Sawyer getting others to do his work for him than keeping an eye on more would-be helpers. My children rotated on and off the job as fingers froze and clothes needed drying, but after about three hours of steady work the igloo now had a narrowing hole at the top and my son’s head stuck out as if from a turret. My plastic container finally cracked from all the stamping that compressing the snow required, and after a frenzied search of the attic I located another, small one, that would have been frustrating to use at the outset of this project but which worked just fine at the latter stage. A few more spiraling courses and we capped the dome, sealed up the rough edges, and wormed our way inside to admire our handiwork.It is not a very large igloo, but it has withstood the warm weather that followed our snow day. Last night we made ice lanterns by freezing the contents of water balloons and placing votive candles inside the crystal bowls that emerged. On the dark side of the igloo, out of the glare of the street light, a candle placed within the structure reveals our icy masonry beneath its cover of snow. The joy of that snowy afternoon spent together on our igloo will remain far longer than the candle flame and the snows of winter.Tim Abbott is program director of Housatonic Valley Association’s Litchfield Hills Greenprint. His blog is at greensleeves.typepad.com.