The perfect snowball maker

I'm a big L.L. Bean fan, and I like nothing better than getting a paper catalog. Although nothing all that much changes from year to year, I eagerly browse through, turning down corners on the items I need and/or want. And then I go online to buy them. (I really should call in, however, because the folks who work the order lines there are really nice and I do want to keep them employed.)

So I was quite content paging through the big, fat holiday catalog that showed up last week.

Perhaps it has been there for years, but one item that jumped out at me as I grazed the book, trying to decide which of my turtlenecks - the ones with the necks stretched from turtle to tortoise - are ratty enough to merit replacement:

A snowball and snow castle maker, which - for $29.95  - will let you "build snow forts and fill them with perfect snowballs."

Hey, kids, and all you moms and dads out there. Here's something you might not be aware of. You can actually build a snow fort and fill it with snowballs (although they may not be perfect) for free.

Here's how you build a fort:

• Make sure the snow has some moisture. If it's all poofy-powdery, make some snow angels. Jump into drifts. Once the snow gets down the back of your neck - which probably isn't allowed these days - go back inside for a cup of cocoa.
• If the snow has some moisture, scope out area where you want your fort to be. If you're anticipating that your fort might be attacked - which probably isn't allowed these days - and you don't have enough kids to cover all sides, look for a location where your back is protected. Up against the house won't do - windows could get broken - but up against a wooden fence or hedgerow would work.
• Pace out the perimeter. Don't get over enthusiastic here. Just because every room in your McMansion is the size of the house your grandparents were raised in doesn't mean you need a McSnowfort. You just need enough room to fit all the kids who a working on the snow fort with you.  (Note: before pacing out the perimeter, make sure you're wearing your galoshes.)
• Situate yourself and your posse within the perimeter. Start pushing the snow out to build up the walls. You can use a shovel. But don't go down to grass level. It's more fun if the floor is snow-covered.
• Pack the snow down as you go. You can use a shovel. If you need more snow, get some from outside the fort. You can do this by carrying the snow in  your arms or pushing it. You can use a shovel.
• Don't be discouraged. Your original idea was that the fort was going to be over your head height, and would have cool window holes, so you could spy on your enemies and throw snowballs through. This is way too much effort. Plus you can't throw snowballs very effectively through a window hole.
• Settle for waist high.
• Then settle for knee high.
• Decide whether you'd be better off with Plan B, which is to find a big mound of snow that the plow has left, and either declare it a fort as is, or hollow some of it out. This probably isn't allowed. The plow could come back and crush you.
• Either way, you now have a fort.
• If it's really cold, you can get a couple of pans of water to pour on your fort. This will turn the walls to ice. Caution: if it's not that cold out, this will turn the walls to mush.
• Now, you can continue to play, or you can come to the realization that your galoshes aren't water proof and your feet are wet. That snot has frozen to your cheeks. And that what you really want to do is take a picture of your cool fort and put it on your Facebook page.  In which case, some jerk will no doubt come over and write something on your wall making fun of your cruddy snow fort.
• You aren't allowed to swear, but under your breath you call your dad an a-hole because he wouldn't get you the L.L. Bean fort maker. You realize too late - with global warming, this might be it for snow this year - that you should have asked your aunt with no kids to get you one.

If you're still outside, you now have a fort. So you need snowballs. (Note: you can make snowballs even if you don't have a fort.)

Here's how you make a snowball.

• First, see instructions on what to do if snow is poofy-powdery.
• Then, if it's okay to proceed, make sure that you're wearing mittens.
• Scoop up snow with both hands.
• With back and forth wrist motion, pack the snow into a ball.
• Place inside fort (if you have one).
• Your original idea is that you will have a pile of snowballs the height of the fort.  (Here's where you realize it's not so bad to have a fort that's only knee high.) The other part of your original idea is that your cache of snowballs will look like the pyramid of cannon balls at Fort Ticonderoga.
• It won't.
• Don't get discouraged.
• And don't do something evil like embed a stone or a block of ice in your snowballs. You could take someone's eye out with that. Or break a car window of a cantankerous old geezer (ha-ha), or some nice lady coming home from the pediatrician with her 6 month old baby. You could end up wrecking someone's car, or hurting someone bad. Even if nothing happens to anyone, the cantankerous old geezer could be so pissed off that he complains to your parents. This could be big trouble. You could be blamed. You could have your Facebook privileges taken away. Or your ultra-cool parents (who knew?) could yell at the old geezer, and tell him to get off your property or they'll call the police. (Ha-ha.)
• In any case, you now have at least a few snowballs.
• If there's no enemy gang to attack, divide up your crew. Make half go outside the fort. (Whoever's yard it is gets to stay in the fort. Just because.)
• Throw snowballs back and forth until a) you run out of snowballs which, even though they are a rather renewable resource, are actually boring to make in large lots; or b) some whiner actually gets (fake) hurt, or decides that it's no fair that he/she's stuck outside the fort he/she helped build, or gets snow down the back of his/her neck and calls it quits.
• Decide that this was sort of fun, but that it would have been better if you'd had that snowball maker, because then your snowballs would have been perfect.
• Make a note to ask your aunt to get you one next Christmas.
• Decide that it would be even more fun to have a snowball maker that was automated.
• Go into the house to invent one.
• Get bored inventing the automated snowball maker - inventing's so hard.
• Search on line for automated snowball maker.
• Discover to your chagrin that everyone in your class is madly texting about what a lame-o dork loser you are to be spending time building a fort and throwing snowballs when you could have been texting.
• Inform your parents that you don't feel well, and that you may be too sick to go to school tomorrow.
• Lay down on your bed and feel sorry for yourself.
• Plot revenge on your enemies, including fantasizing about throwing a humongous snowball with a big rock in it right through the screen of your arch-enemy's laptop.
• Call your great-grandmother in Naples, Florida, and ask if you can move in with her. No perfect or imperfect snow forts and snowballs to worry about there.

The perfect snowball maker! Bah, humbug.

There's a snowball's chance in hell I'll ever be buying one!

And don't get me going on those snowman making kits...