Beyond the cold snap.

We are officially into the frigid, freezing, pipe-bursting, hard-freeze, totally stupid weather zone. Temperatures drop to ten degrees below freezing after midnight, which has my husband out in the yard at 10:00pm turning off the water valves, then he turns them back on in the morning. The water in the cottage and the barn are turned off completely now, and the pan of water inside the chicken coop has been frozen solid for the past three mornings.

This morning when I went out to the coop with some vegetable scraps for the hens, they all came running across the courtyard to meet me half-way. Scarlett flew ahead of the others, and plopped herself on top of my right foot, sitting there until I picked her up. As soon as she was in my arms, she buried her little head in my elbow, just like a cat would. She didn't even seem to care that I was holding a dish of chopped-up celery ends... she just sat there nice and cozy for a few minutes while I stood there holding her in the cold.

Even with these colder temperatures, the hens are laying eggs. They're not running around the yard much unless they can find a patch of sun. Today is much cloudier than yesterday, but without the wind, today's temperature doesn't seem as cold as yesterday was, even though the actual temperature this morning was five degrees lower than yesterday's.

Such stupid weather. Totally stupid. I drove into town yesterday to get my hair trimmed, and had I not cancelled last week's appointment, I would have been cancelling yesterday's. It was just so cold that I didn't want to go out, but I did keep the appointment and then came right home afterwards. I wasn't even in the mood to browse through the shops in town, and I certainly wasn't in the mood for WalMart--- much too cold to be dealing with the wind that whips through that parking lot up there near the highway. The best part of going out yesterday was the drive back and forth in my car--- it has heated seats. By the time you're halfway into town, you feel like a piece of toast.

I watched the TV news this morning and saw the snowstorms that are blasting through the northeast. My cousins in Suffolk County were unable to get into work today, and their kids didn't get to school. A snow day! Do kids today get as excited over a snow day as we used to when we were kids? When I was in the third grade, there was actually a kid in our class who would light candles in church, praying for enough snow to close the school. He was one of the smartest kids in the class, but he hated school, especially in the winter. All he wanted to do was take his sled to the park and go flying down the hills over hard-packed snow. Makes me wonder if he grew up to become a Winter Olympics champion.

Well, there's no snow here, but it sure feels cold enough for that. We did have a bit of snow last year.... everything here was cloaked in white and these hills looked like a giant Christmas card. The snow didn't last long because it warmed up shortly after the snow fell. I think we had about half an inch or less of snow..... and they closed up the schools and most of the businesses here. Less than half an inch, and it was a snow day! Half an inch in the northeast, and no one would even notice it much.