Windchill

 

Minus sixteen this morning; and with the winds prompting, an even less bearable wind chill of minus forty one degrees. I put on all my warm chore clothes over and above my normal clothes. Full regalia. They weigh twenty one pounds, I know because I weighed them. There are people who work in these temperatures all winter. Hats off to them; they are heartier souls than I.

I step outside after kicking the door open because condensation has it frozen tight. That first icy inhalation feels like a chestful of angry wasps. I gasp and cough. After coaxing the pickup to start, I drive to check the cows.  I should have known the stock tank heater would blow out. I proceed to start chopping ice. The axe is so cold that water freezes to it instantly, and it steadily grows thicker with every chop in the ice and water, like a dipped candle with a wick of sharp, filed steel. 

I unroll two bales of hay for the miserable cows. In the time it takes me to quickly grab a photo or two, my hands are so cold I can hardly put my camera away and put my gloves back on. I want to photograph more; but it is too cold. Tiny ice crystals hang, shimmering in the air. A sundog appears behind the windmill on Kellogg's pasture at sundown. 

If these frigid days are like the long taut pulls of barbed wire, then the nights are the wirebreak splices, where one day is hooked around the next; the wire doubled back on itself, wrapped tight, holding the tension, thick with barbs and errant ends flying away, dreaming up frost and ice and moons. 

Comments

[John Cross]

"A sundog appears" que es? Que es "sundog"
all this while I relish the warmth of "goodness" as a concept to supplant he "weird"
And whats with all the "

[John Cross]

Wind-chill? But its warm out! C'mon Ned your loyal fan(s) are waiting!