Sledding Memory

Here is another reminiscence from Ray T. in Atlantic Iowa: During the winter months a sled was an important part of our lives as kids while we lived on the farm. We use to work for hours making a huge pile of snow just behind the old cob shed. I can remember dad helping us. It was already down hill from that area all the way to the creek , but climbing up the back side and descending down this pile of snow on the sled, usually gave us the extra speed we needed to go all the way to the creek. The creek was in the cow pasture a considerable distance away. We use to have an opening ( small gate) in the cow yard fence that we had to pass thru. I can remember even carrying water and pouring it on the path our sled was to travel, so that it was good and slippery. It helped.
Of course we always had to drag the sled back up the hill for the next trip down. That was no problem when you were having fun.
We use to sled at night by turning on the yard light or on moon lit nights. It was a bit dark behind the cob shed, but that was no problem since we knew the area by heart.
We often continued to add snow to the pile (launch pad) we built with a scoop shovel, so it kept getting higher and higher. Sometimes while one of the others was using the sled, rather than wait our turn for the sled, we would resort to riding the scoop shovel backwards down the hill. This sometimes created a problem, since the opening in the fence was not very wide and that thing did not steer well. Most of the steering was done by dragging the feet on the ground. Several times we would run off the path and end up under the scoop shovel.