A wicked January ....

Snow is falling at this very moment, mixed with a cold rain. Part of me wants to curl up under a blanket and read for the next however long. The other part of me wants to trek into the cold and pretend to enjoy it. The stupid part of me won. I pulled on my LL Bean waterproof shoes, my quilted coat, wool gloves, and decided the dog had to suffer with me. After all, it was time for her afternoon walk. She got to wear her hot pink quilted coat. Which turned out to be NOT waterproof, despite costing a small fortune from Eddie Bauer.

We survived, despite the dog trying to turn around and pull me back to the warmth of our home. I feel oddly satisfied that I didn’t succumb to the sloth living inside me. When I was a kid living in Kansas, we had snow like Virginia sees only once every fifty years. I had a horse, actually two of them, one a foal. I would stack on the quilted layers, boots, hat, etc., and walk to the stables to feed and water them, and even when the snow was two feet deep, ride my mare. Snowballs would build up in her hooves, and I had to hop off and dig them out much too often for my taste. But I did it, because she was my priority. A real trooper, she would trot along, flinging icy snow every which way, snorting gray streams of steam into the air. The metal stirrups froze to my boots. I’d return home, after settling the horses down for the night, coated with snow and ice.

Caring for animals doesn’t stop because the weather is nasty. I’m glad I learned that lesson when I was a child.