At last, there was a break in the bitter cold. Lissa and I played Lewis and Clark. Beau wandered across the mostly frozen river to the far shore. We did not, since a serviceable bridge was in sight.
While it was cold, I went out a couple of times a day to feed the chickens and fill the bird feeders. Alarmist warnings on the weather radio would have people believe that venturing out would result in instant frozen faces. I explained to a friend that it would only result if a person was immobile, say stuck in a snowbank.
Folks in the northern states and Canada get out all the time in the winter, much more than we do here in Missouri, and they seem to not only survive but thrive.
I did stay inside on a particularly cold day when grandchildren Molly and Jason went sledding. I had a cough and the snow wasn't really great. Izzy and I sat by the fire and drank coffee like wimps..
When Izzy was a baby, in 1967,we lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, a place that was really cold, sixty below zero. We went outside lots. When we went to watch the dogsled races on the always uncleared main street, we had to step into the stores occasionally to warm up not ourselves but the camera batteries. That day, it probably was only thirty below zero. Our faces didn't freeze. I learned to make mukluks (footwear seen above left) but was glad to leave such an inhospitable climate. It was not a gardeners' paradise.
Back to the present, Lis spotted some clear bags of leaves dumped alongside the exit ramp on her way here. We drove there, backed down the never-congested ramp and got them for my garden.
"Another fun Mother-Daughter outing," she said, assuring me that the worms would be very happy to have the leaves for dessert after I gave them a rich meal of chicken poop seasoned with wood ashes.
