The Snow Plumps

Writing exercise #1: A creative way to shake loose those stubborn ideas hiding in the back of my Brain. Snow on the trees – how to make this come alive? You try it and send me a link in the comments!

The Snow Plumps have come. A whole flock of them has gathered around my house, peering down at me from their various perches on the pine trees outside. I always love to see them – they look deceivingly peaceful – and the air gets quiet when they arrive, but this is less because of peace and more because a war is about to start…

After much study, I’ve decided they’re a very strange species of hen, with tiny snow flakes instead of feathers. They only visit in the dead of winter with the heaviest snowfalls and leave as soon as it gets too warm. Or windy. They absolutely hate the wind and the wind absolutely loves to ruin their fun whenever it can by scattering them off the tree branches before they’ve had a chance to play their games.

You see, Snow Plumps look like lumpy balls of cotton or cloud, but in reality they’re fat, heavy things that like to war with the pine trees. A snow plump’s favourite thing to do is inch out to the very tip of the pine needles and sit there for as long as it can, gathering snowflakes until the branch acts like a catapult, launching it into the air in protest. Snow plumps find it enormously fun to be launched in such a way and they burst into a magnificent waterfall of tiny crystals, disappearing back to where they came from in a show of icy splendour. They only get annoyed when the wind diminishes them bit by bit before they can be launched or if it stops snowing and the Pine tree manages to hold out long enough that they lose their snowflakes to the atmosphere.

What you may not know, is that pine trees are quite delicate, snobbish creatures. And thus, they hate snow plumps with a vengeance. Pine trees believe wholeheartedly that their one true beauty is their pine needles. This means that while they adore the rain for the way it gathers on their pine needle tips like tiny diamonds on polished nails, they loathe snow plumps. First of all snow plumps give them sore branches – pine trees may seem like tough creatures, but their branches are not hardy at all. No. Pine trees are always afraid they might lose a branch to a particularly fat snow plump – or even (shudder) be bowed right over from their very tip – something that only happens to young, newish trees. Whenever the pines see a young tree with its head arched towards the ground in a state of great embarrassment (the ground is a place a pine tree should never be looking at), the whole forest can’t bear to look and turn their backs to it immediately.

And so, the sight of the snow plumps outside my window, with their glittering fat little bodies always gives me a sense of anticipation. It means there’s about to be a silent war. I don’t know who to cheer for – the pine trees or the snow plumps. But if I’m being perfectly honest… its probably the snow plumps.