Frosty Drivel and Leftovers

Yesterday, my friend and blog editor Helen suggested that I purchase some electric socks.  

And, THAT comment came when I had told her over the phone that my feet were cold after coming downstairs from writing my blog post.

With her suggestion, I thought about the box of hand warmers sitting just inside the door here in the computer room.  

Dah! I could have put them in my socks and enjoyed a much toastier experience of pounding on my keyboard.

The last few days have necessitated wearing several layers to come up here and sit at my computer to work on the blog and some story assignments.  

In fact, this morning, my upper body ensemble totaled four tops, including a down vest. 

It's cold again today, and while sitting up here for the first cup of coffee and Internet surfing, I could have assigned a math exercise when my friend and former student Kari sent me an email, noting that she's in Maryland where it's 80 degrees.  

Yup, I should have told Kari to figure out what ten percent of 80 degrees is, and that we were sure wishing that we could be as warm as her final, final answer. 

Instead, I simply told her how many tops I was wearing.

Later, before going out to the barn to feed the horses, I did some math of my own and figured out that when I walked out the door and headed to the barn, I was wearing 17 items on my body and those did not include my earrings and hair clips, which would bump it up to 23. 

Seventeen!  

It does take a long time and some intensive effort to get dressed for this cold weather, and ya wanna know something???  

I'm getting tired of spending that much time several times a a day dressing and undressing and carrying what must be at least 30 pounds of clothing outside. 

Yesterday I made the mistake of NOT thinking about putting the hand warmers inside my socks before going over to my sisters' farm to see little CB.  

When I arrived, Laurie was plowing out the mailbox and the ends of the driveway while Barbara was outside taking one of the dogs for a duty walk. 

We hadn't seen each other for three days because of the stormy weekend, so we had some catching up to do, which we did outside, IN THE cold.  

By the time, we had finished our debriefing, I realized that the soles of my feet had gone numb.

"Well, I'd better get down to see CB," I announced, "before my feet break off."  

So, we said our good byes, and I moved on down to the corral where I saw my little guy for the first time in three days.  

He could have used some electric socks or foot warmers too, but he seemed to be dealing with snow balls velcroed to his legs much better than I was doing with two pairs of socks, boots and snow pants (by the way, that made 18 items cuz I wore no snow pants to the barn this morning). 

It was obvious, as it always is, that horses are a whole lot tougher than people.  Our visit was short but sweet, and soon I went on my way. 

Actually, the cold is not too bad if we can keep moving.  I did go for a long walk yesterday and never once thought about the cold.  It's just when we stand in one spot for more than ten seconds that it gets to the bones and quickly. 

With luck, this cold stretch will eventually end, and then we can start complaining about standing water and mud once again.  We're all hoping that spring will soon be on the way.

For now, we'll keep loading on those clothes and warming up water buckets for the horses after scooping up frozen poops.  

Which brings to mind:  my dogs are also having a rough time during this cold weather.  

Their teeth need to go to a whole lot of extra work to chomp down those horse apples in the manure pile. 

Life will get better.  Enjoy the photos, some of which are definitely leftovers from the pretty day scenes around the place on Monday. 

Happy Wednesday.  

I wonder if I dribbled a variety of colorful, flavor juices over the top of these fence cones, the horses would eat them.

Might have to give it a try during these cold days. Even if they didn't eat them, it would be pretty.