chilly today

Among the dumb jokes that stuck with me from early adolescence was:
Mexican weather report:
Chili today, Hot tamale

Unfortunately my neck of the woods is not expected to rise above FREEZING until February. On the estate, our little valley grabs the cold and hangs on to it with unappreciated tenacity.

You can see my morning low to the left.
Yep … minus 24 … or so.

Thanks to a nice collection of firewood I have built up, I can keep the palace around a plus 75… roughly a one hundred degree difference … that I really appreciate after plowing or blowing snow in the yard for an hour or two.

The photo to the right is from yesterday’s two-hour down-payment on moving 7 1/2 inches of Saturday snowfall from places where it would make difficult use of our ingress, egress and mobility around the estate.

I followed up today with a long hour of snow plowing, and will be back at snow management tomorrow with another hour or two behind the snow blower, and will likely dress it out Tuesday with the snow plow.

The chickens look forward to having a little room to move beyond the tiny strip of bare ground around their coop, feed and water… well, they have not exactly expressed that to me directly, but say it in other ways… cosmically… I can feel their requests.

I am incredibly grateful that I have the cool tools, but would not complain a bit if someone else popped up to operate them while I watched through the windows of our cozy castle.

Actually, I am at that transitional phase where I actually would be uncomfortable with that, but am also beginning to recognize the high miles on this particular carbon-unit I occupy, and that I may want to ask slightly less of it on a regular basis.