First, it has to be the right snow. Big-flake, Bing Crosby, stick to the ground snow that won’t let you run your fingers through it, snow that muffles and crunches when your foot comes down. It can still be snowing, or you can wait until it stops; your call. If the snow came unexpectedly, there will still be the leavings of the lawn’s last mowing beneath it. You take a handful of the stuff, compact it into the shape of the inside of your first, and then you roll it, as if rolling out a carpet, along the ground.

Eventually you will be rolling up big ribbons of snow, leaving the stark, perplexed grass behind. There will be grass stuck in the snow, but don’t worry. This is October and there will be more snow. What you’re doing now is reminding your yard what it means to board snow people. For now, just keep rolling. The snow will come up like laying down sod in reverse, a snow burrito. Whenever you feel like it, turn the snow roll a quarter turn and start to roll again, to even things out. Whenever it’s big enough, roll it somewhere with good lighting, a place of prominence, because your man is going to be standing there at least until November, dying sooner only if some punk kid happens along with delusions of martial art. When it’s in place, you can start your second ball, the torso ball. This one need not be as big, unless you’re making a misshapen man for fun.

Don’t worry if the snow ball you’re rolling cracks and falls to pieces. You’ll be able to see the layers of the thing, like a broken jawbreaker, seeing the ribbons of grass spiraling through the cutaway snow like the sparkling layers of a geode opened by a skilled lapidary.

It doesn’t matter what you’re making because anything is more than what you had before.

You can stack as many parts as you like, vertical for humanoids, horizontal for reptiles, and do not be shy about fashioning grotesque, exaggerated sex organs for your creations; you are not the first to do this and you will not be the last. Men have been fashioning all kinds of things into penises since time immemorial, so feel free to indulge these inner urges. Breasts are fine too, but women in your group will be critical of them, noting that they are likely lop-sided and disproportionate. Pebbles or acorns can be added for nipples, if you like.

You can use anything handy for facial features and accessories. Carrots are popular for noses, but you can also use doorknobs, extra shoes, old boxing gloves. Buckets should only ever be used as hats; never as a brassiere. Coal is alright to use for eyes, but who has coal handy anymore? Apples work, as will most citrus, but you will have a flock of crows violating your creation in a few days, so be warned. If you’re making a snow scarecrow, this will add to the effect.

Twigs and sticks can serve as appendages, but they aren’t very original. Mats of grass can, of course, he fashioned into rudimentary hair pieces, and as long as your snow women have none on their faces or under their arms, no one driving by will be terribly offended.

Give your snowman an old coat to keep him warm and giggle at the irony.

The important thing is to have the guy smile. Bananas will do for this, as will a simple curvilinear line of stones, or a loop of red licorice if you’re really creative. He won’t be around for long (but who of us really is?) and it’s the least you can to do make his brief stay pleasant.

There are times when it seems like the weather wants to take the world back from us.  This past summer, there was a terrible storm out near my home that sent an air conditioner window unit crashing back into my room from the window it was mounted in, and through the vacated hole in the window the storm raged in.  I remember because I was downstairs when it happened, and the sudden change in air pressure slammed the door shut, a huge resounding crash, and I had to push against it with all of my weight to get it open, and even then it was hard.  The wind howled, funneled into that small space, like a miniature domestic wind tunnel, and it was all I could do to cut off that wind, as the rain blew in from a ominous sky the color of mint.

As I write this, it’s snowing.  It’s been snowing all day.  It’s the kind of snow that makes mockery of shovels and snowblowers because twenty minutes after you finish removing the stuff it’s back.  The crests of the drifts meander in lazy curls, obscuring sidewalks and negating stairways.  And it’s a cold snow.  The wind is fierce and bitter on the prairie, and it cuts through any layers you bundle on against it.  It’s cuts, and it burns the lungs when you breath it.  It’s the kind of night that I’m just content to stay inside and wait for the tantrum to stop, to wait for the world to right itself again.

Three days ago it was seventy degrees and the asian lady bugs that congregate on the side of my apartment building were going crazy, crawling under the door and clicking against the lights, and today we got dumped on with snow.  It was cold and rainy all day, and then after dark it turned to a heavy, cold, wet snow that sugar-frosted all of the trees and turned to slush in the roads.  Walking home, I felt like the mythic Paul Bunyan, forming giant lakes with every footfall.

There is something about snow that inspires creativity.  An hour after the snow started, I found a little snowman perched on a garbage can, and two hours after that someone had constructed half of a man-high wall on the mall, and he was still building it, patting it down, adding clumps of slush, when I started my walk home.