Snowed up

Every time we get a lot of snow (we are currently in the middle of SnOMG 2010 with 5" on the ground so far and another 20 or so expected), this scene runs through my head.

One still morning, Laura came downstairs to find Ma looking surprised and Pa laughing. "Go look out the back door!" he told Laura.
She ran through the lean-to and openend the back door. There was a rough, low tunnel going into shadows in gray-white snow. Its walls and its floor were snow and its snow roof solidly filled the top of the doorway.
"I had to gopher my way to the stable this morning," Pa explained.
"But what did you do with the snow?" Laura asked.
"Oh, I made the tunnel as low as I could get though. I dug the snow out and pushed it back of me and up through a hole that I blocked with the last of it. There's nothing like snow for keeping out wind!" Pa rejoiced. "As long as that snowbank stands, I can do my chores in comfort."
"How deep is the snow?" Ma wanted to know.
"I can't say." It's piled up considerably deeper than the lean-to roof," Pa answered.
"You don't mean to say this house is buried in snow!" Ma exclaimed.
"A good thing if it is," Pa replied. "You notice the kitchen is warmer than it has been this winter?"
Laura ran upstairs. She scratched a peephole on the window and put her eyes to it. She could hardly believe them. Main Street was level with her eyes. Across the glittering snow she could see the blank, square top of Harthorn's false front sticking up like a short piece of solid board fence.

From The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder