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When
I was a girl we lived in Southern California. There is a weed that
grows out in the desert areas called a tumbleweed. It is a green
plant that grows in a mass jumble of twisted branches, sometimes
reaching 3 feet round. When the plant dies the shallow root system
breaks loose from the sandy soil and it tumbles with the wind.
The only place in California that gets snow is the high mountains.
So, lacking snow to make snowmen, we invented our own. At Christmas
time we would drive out to the desert and collect the dried tumbleweeds.
Then we would spray paint them white and stack them up on a pole
stuck in the ground. Decorate with an old hat, branches for arms,
carrot nose, charcoal briquettes for eyes and PRESTO -- you have
a "snowman"!!
We were not an oddity, many families decorated their yards with
these tumbleweed snowmen. Here in Houston we don't have snow and
there is no desert close to go get the tumbleweeds. So, this will
remain a fond childhood memory.
Vicki
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