When I was growing up, there was a woman who went to our church whose family owned an old farm in central Massachusetts. One day each winter, she would invite anyone who wanted to come to go sledding in the farm’s apple orchard. Everyone looked forward to this outing, especially the kids. The orchard’s sledding hill was steep and wide. It seemed to go on almost forever, ending only at the point where its snow-covered grass met the January sky.
I can still remember the smell of the woodsmoke drifting out of the farmhouse’s chimney when we dragged our sleds out of the car. My sister and I had the cheap plastic ones you could buy at the grocery store, the red kind with yellow handles on the sides. One family always brought a four-seat toboggin, which was fun the first few times you tried it. But the enormous wooden sled would inevitably be abandoned once we got tired of dragging it back up the hill.
Some kids had the round, inflatable sleds that mimicked the look of tires. These were by far the fastest, barely skimming the surface of the snow as they flew by. The flat, plastic blue sleds were our least favorite. They were hard to straighten out after spending months rolled into tubes for storage. They were so lightweight, if you weren’t paying attention they would often slide right down the hill without you.
Most of the adults hung out in the warm farmhouse, sipping mulled wine as they watched us through its antique windows, their wavy glass panes distorting the view like the mirrors in a funhouse. But a few grownups always came outside with us, usually fathers. Sometimes they would sled, too, but mostly they supervised, standing at the top of the hill before the rows of dark, gnarled trees, arms folded, ready to jump at the first sign of a crash or injury.
Eventually, a pair of mothers would be seen climbing the hill—there always seemed to be two. They’d converse for a bit with the fathers, their long down coats brushing at their ankles, before telling us we needed to come inside and warm up.
Even on sunny days, it was always bitterly cold. Your hair and mittens would freeze solid and you’d lose the feeling in your fingers and toes. It wasn’t like our winters are now, where the temperature often rises to well above freezing, melting all the snow and ice and leaving behind yawning pools of mud.
Inside, the farmhouse smelled like wet wool and smoldering maple logs. Built in the seventeenth century, its floors were made from foot-wide old growth pine boards, grooved in the places where countless feet had walked across them: farmers wearing handmade boots, running toddlers, women carrying pies. You could feel the centuries of life in the place. It leaked right out of the horsehair plaster walls.
We drank hot cocoa from paper cups and ate cookies sprinkled with sugar while sitting on a hand-braided rug in the front of the woodstove, our boots piled up by the door. Steaming mittens and damp socks decorated the stove’s cast iron surface. Some kids, mostly boys, kept their snow pants on, waiting for the moment they would be allowed to go outside again.
Our second time out never lasted as long as the first. We always seemed to get cold faster, most likely because we were soaked to the skin, but also because the temperature would start to drop as night came on. Our last sled run of the day often ended just as the sun settled on the western horizon.
On the drive home, my sister and I would usually fall asleep in the car.
The last time I went sledding at the farm, I was in the sixth grade. The family who owned the land sold it after that. Today, the old farmhouse is long gone. The apple orchard is occupied by a Target store. It was built high on the sledding hill, so you can see it from the highway.
I drive by the place sometimes. I always wonder if there’s anything left that I might recognize, a stray apple tree maybe, or a glacial erratic that was too large to move. I’ve never checked, though, even after all these years. I suppose I don’t really want to know. I prefer to remember the farm the way it was, full of laughter and magic, all covered in a deep layer of snow.
ENP
*NO AI TRAINING
Emilie-Noelle Provost 