Sam and his young brother, Tom, were thrilled that it had snowed enough the night before to have covered the ground with a few inches of fresh, soft, fluffy snow. And more important, the snowfall was enough for schools to be closed for the day.

After getting the blessing from their mother, who had to begrudgingly stay home from work because of the school closings, they headed out to the woods a few blocks from their home.

The boys were running around, trying to make snowballs to throw at each other. But the snow was too dry and fluffy to make good snowballs, so they decided to go exploring deeper into the woods. That’s when they saw something strange in a small clearing in the forest.

They both ran toward the object that attracted their attention. “That’s weird,” said Tom.

Sam looked around. “Hey, there are no footprints in the snow around this thing, but there’s no snow on it,” he said.

“So what does that mean?” Tom asked.

“It means that it was put here after the snow stopped,” Sam answered. “But how did it get here? Who put it here and didn’t leave footprints in the fresh snow?”

Continue reading: #writephoto — Snow Day – This, That, and The Other