Shakin' Off the Cold

Right now, it is around fifteen degrees below zero. When I left for work this morning, it was minus 22.  What do you do on a farm, out in the country when it is that cold?

As little as possible.

I took this photo last year when I was up for a visit.
That's right.  It says -30 as the temperature. Yikes...

I can remember growing up in Iowa and defining "cold" as anything below ten above. The newscasters on TV would warn viewers, "Don't go outside unless you absolutely have to!"  And we'd stay inside as much as we could.  Man, and I thought I was cold?!  I couldn't even conceive of temperatures like what I have already experienced in the north country.

Out here, the newscasters don't warn people to stay indoors.  Perhaps they figure people know better.  Besides, any good rancher will realize the cows don't care what the temperature is.  They still need to be fed a bale.  This is our first really cold snap of the winter season.  It happens every year, but no one is ever ready. How can you be?

Harvey has to go outside in the cold, too, but we don't let him stay out longer than about 5 minutes.

Jeff fed the cows this morning and that's about it.  The rest of his day was spent working on some of our home remodeling projects.  I was indoors at work in Chester.  The only time I spent outside was walking from the building to my car, and from my car back to the house when I got home.  Even for that, I wore my warmest "not messing around with Winter-time" jacket and covered all exposed skin with gloves, scarves and a hat, so that all that was exposed was my eyes. And I could still feel the cold, creeping in.

So, we plug in the block heaters on our cars and then start them and let them run for a half our or so even, before we smush our Michelin-Man bodies into the carseats and begrudgingly head off through the frigid air.  As some consolation, I guess we're all in it together.