Relative Something

We’re getting a full dose of winter now. They call it an Alberta Clipper and boy did it clip through here yesterday. We enjoyed beautiful blustery snow all day, alternating between sailing by horizontally and falling picture-post-card perfect. Then suddenly at a few minutes past 3:00, the snow stopped falling and patches of sunshine peeked between the clouds. The low pressure center was already on its way to Chicago and beyond.

While walking with Delilah in the morning, I captured a selfie that should become my next profile picture. This is my uniform for working outside in dangerous wind-chill temperatures.

Some of the snowflake crystals were captured nicely on my cap, but a few show up as a blur sailing by in the wind. It was still mighty cold when this was taken, but we did climb comfortably above zero for a time in the afternoon. After the sun set, the temperature dropped quickly and the strong gusting wind helped to change things back to an almost painful level.

You learn to do things quickly at these temperatures. There is no benefit in dawdling.

Delilah doesn’t shy away from the cold, but she certainly is easy to persuade when I offer up the option to go back into the house. She stayed outside for a long time in the afternoon, despite the wicked wind, while I was shoveling and then plowing with the Grizzly.

In this image, she is looking toward the horses, who spent most of the day out in the falling snow, with blankets on, pawing and grazing in the back pasture. I presume they were low enough to be out of the direct force of the wind at that spot. They certainly didn’t stray from that location until time came for their usual dinner hour.

Then they ran up to the barn and politely waited for me to get everything set before inviting them into the stalls for the night.

To top off this day of serious winter weather, Cyndie spent about 3-hours driving home through traffic rife with spinouts, accidents and cars in ditches. She was successful in keeping all four of her tires in touch with the ground.

It was a real-deal winter day of the kind that suits the name we gave our place: Wintervale.

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