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handfuls of sticky snow." I saw a flicker of interest on the snow slug's face, so I went on. "You have to chink up the walls to make them strong. See this sticky snow; it's perfect for shoring up the walls."

"Oh," he said. And with all the energy he could muster, my former snow slug began to chink the wall.

The building continued, chink by chink, chunk by chunk. The wall was going up, but I wasn't sure about the level of my grandchildren's interest in this rather old-fashioned mode of play. That is until I turned around to see the younger grandson with an oddly rounded piece of snow.

"Look Nana," he said, beaming. "This can be a flower pot. With a flower," he added, with a serious bob of his orange-toqued head. I stared at the knobby piece of snow, and smiled; the kid was getting it.

"We used to add all kinds of decorative touches like ornaments and furniture to our snow houses when I was little," I said. "That flower pot is a great idea."

He set the flower pot down, stopped, turned and gave me his award-winning quizzical expression. "Nana? Can we build a doorway? I want something to crawl through."

"Sure," I said, "but it will take some work. Because we have to build it strong enough, so it doesn't come down on your head." He nodded, so I continued. "We'll have to build up this wall - it will act as a doorpost but we need to build a separate column here. Then we need a large piece that will cross over between the two posts. It's called a "lintel."

My youthful crew and I began to strengthen the existing wall, and build up the new post. Besides lintels, they learned about weight-bearing walls, and buttresses, and absorbed energy. Lintel, linten, linton, they never really heard the word, could barely spell it, but they got the concept.

My younger grandson sort of disappeared. I finally looked over to see him lying on his back, kicking at a huge block of snow. "What are you doing," I asked.

"Look, Nana. Look how much I've dug away." Indeed, he had. I called over the former snow slug, and between the three of us we kicked, scooped, and finally wrestled the massive snow block off its perch. Carrying it back to our snow wall was another matter. But between the four of us (my granddaughter was also recruited), we hauled it over.

After a short struggle, watched by a small group of curious onlookers, we hefted the massive snow chunk into position.

"Okay, you guys, I'll hold it, while you build up the walls underneath it. They have to be made stronger, or the lintel will fall

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