altivo

Gary's in Chicago, I'm here with just the dogs. It's -7F outside and dropping. Fortunately I have firewood and the stove is already going. I think this is a night for the sofa in the living room with my quilt and plush pony.

Got home later than I'd planned by at least an hour or two. It was already getting dark and I still had to clean stalls before I could bed everyone down. Tess, as usual, let me know what she thought about my tardiness. Fortunately once she gives me a lecture she forgets about it and is her usual sweet self. Managed to get everything done in just under an hour, but by then outdoor tasks were being done by moonlight (which is brilliant already, though tomorrow is the full moon I think.) The sky is clearing, which must be associated with the bitter cold predicted for tonight and tomorrow. As the poem says, "The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below." The snow isn't really new fallen but it's white enough. There are clear shadows out there.

Even so, venturing out into the back pastures looks to be a bad idea. During the warm spell earlier this week, a lot of snow melted. As has happened for three years now, this flooded a large portion of our pastures (thanks to the stupid, greedy, ill planned development to the north of us) and that water froze when the temperature dropped again. So there are sheets of ice out there that I can see glistening in the moonlight, but I can't tell if there's running or still water under them, or if that water drained, so that they are ice floating in mid-air with nothing under it at all. None of those would be good to fall through into, and especially not alone, in the dark, with no one closer than a quarter mile away. Getting the wheelbarrow to the manure pile to empty it would have meant crossing that area, so it's sitting in the barn waiting until daylight.

And tomorrow is Friday, thank goodness. Not soon enough.