Winter Has Arrived

It's really cold outside. No...let me rephrase that...IT'S FRICKIN' FREEZING. We got somewhat spoiled this winter. Up until a couple of days ago it had only snowed once, way back in the beginning of October and it had been fairly mild ever since. I only had to scrape ice off my windshield once and you could easily run outside in shirt sleeves for a few minutes if you needed to do something quickly.

However, winter arrived with a vengeance this weekend! Snow I can handle. Cold temperatures...so so. Wind chill...not so much. We got snow Saturday and most of yesterday but that wasn't the problem. On Saturday the wind was blowing and it felt like it was coming straight off of an iceberg. Ryker had to pull shoes from a couple of the horses and give them a trim so I went out to assist. BAD IDEA!!! I came outside layered - tank top, sweatshirt, goose down vest, gloves, jeans and boots. Within 5 minutes my ears felt like they were going to fall off. I went back in the house and added a jacket/windbreaker with a hood and a stocking cap. This time was a bit better. I could feel my ears again and this time we were in the barn so the wind was blocked - sort of. The wind happened to be blowing the same direction as the two open stall doors in the barn. This time I made it about 20 minutes before I couldn't feel my fingers. After going back into the house and removing my gloves I noticed that the tips of my fingers were purple - AWESOME!

Needless to say, Ryker was on his own. I didn't return to the barn and just stayed inside to finish baking. About 3 hours later I finally got back to an acceptable temperature. It's kind of hard to bake cookies with 5 layers of clothing on.

This morning my truck looked like It'd been locked in a deep freeze for a few centuries and I had to yank on my door to get it open. The roads were decent but the walk in from my parking spot - usually 5 minutes max - took almost 15. It was like walking on a skating rink. Plus I was carrying in plates of cookies and candies so I had nothing to balance myself with. These days I don't worry about falling and making an ass of myself - I worry about getting a head injury because I'm not agile enough to catch myself.

Oh well, winter sucks - and the forecast for the week: tons of snow and a low of 0. Whoptie frickin' do