People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy. (Anton Chekhov)

Well. It’s Monday. Supposed to be frickin’ cold this week too, like 25 below wind chill. Of course, we always get a week in January that’s just frigid. It’s like the weather guy gets amnesia every year. IT’S WINTER. IT’S COLD. We live in MICHIGAN, PEOPLE! Okay, sorry. I’m over it.

Took the weekend off. So did Dad. He and his partner have been through the gamut on the steel building they’re trying to put together. Nothing’s going right on it and they called it on account of cold this week. Hopefully we can keep water open for the cattle and horses. We got the driveway plowed yesterday and thawed the hydrant in the barn yesterday. We had a bucket of snow nearby in case the heat lamp set something on fire. Dad said by the time he got his glasses on and read how to work the fire extinguisher, the barn would have burnt down. So we went low tech with buckets of snow instead.

We went horseback riding yesterday too. That was great. We hadn’t gone in months. It was beautiful, the world all thick and muffled with snow. There wasn’t much wind and we stayed at a pretty good trot, so we stayed warm enough. Coming back to the barn was cold. It usually is. Maxine went with us and stayed right with the horses the whole time. She wandered off the trail a few times and ran through snow up to her chest, so about eight inches or so, but she didn’t sink all the way to the bottom. Dad and I figured there was about a foot or so of snow. We’re prepping for the storms coming in and the cold. Got the cows hayed up, wood hauled in, and protein tubs out. I got to the grocery store too, so no matter what nature throws at us, we have coffee and carrots.