Passing the nosehair test

It's a purty view we have out the sliding glass door as I type. The sun has peeped above the Cabinets in the southeast and has cast a hot-pink-glow over Schweitzer in the Selkirks to the west.

The moon has yet to go to bed.

And, indeed, it's cold out there.

I know because my nosehairs crackled this morning.

It can get colder.

I know that because my footgear did not squeak as I walked across the snow this morning, spreading flakes of hay around the barnyard. The snow remains powdery, so we need a little more cold to pack it down if we want to listen to the "Footstep Squeak." I don't know if that's been coined a dance yet, but it's got possibilities.

On this morning's hay run, I was doing more of a "powder snow hop" cuz of my low-cut shoes and that gap between their tops and the bottoms of my flannel-lined jeans.

On mornings like this and on mornings like yesterday, when we were out early in the darkness tromping through knee-deep snow looking for Annie Dog (I did have my high-topped barn boots on for that search), I can't help but think of Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire" and Jon Krakauer's book turned movie Into the Wild.

I got well-acquainted with London's story during all those years of teaching. At first, I didn't like it because it seemed a bit slow moving, but as my life went on and I had more of my own winter wilderness experiences, I gain a great appreciation for the realistic scenes that London had put to words.

Yesterday morning, while realizing that I wasn't exactly conditioned to tromp through that much snow looking for that dog, I tried to think of a nice resolution and how good it would feel to know Annie was okay and returning to the warmth of the living room wood stove.

I also thought of some of the scenes of frustration depicted in Sean Penn's movie version of Into the Wild and how cruel the forces of nature can be when it's nosehair-cracking cold outside. Fortunate for us, unlike London's character and the real-life character of Christopher McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp, nothing died at the end of our short venture into the wooded darkness. A dog, happy as a clam, stood waiting for us in a relatively warm barn.

This morning that barn is colder, and that old dog, who stayed inside for the entire night because of no snow thundering off the roof----she's been out to the barn to do her morning rounds of picking up a horse apple or two, even if they are a little frozen this morning.

With snow trails around the place from yesterday's work, everything was a lot easier this morning, except for the outside water trough. It had another two-inch layer of ice to chip away so the horses could stick their muzzles in the water, get a drink of ice-cold water and come back up with their own frozen nose hairs.

It's cold.

It's beautiful, and I love the feel of that wood heat emanating from the stove inside the house as I watch gusts of wind carry wisps of light snow across the fields outside the house and think about all the cold nosehairs there could be on those slopes at Schweitzer today.