This is a line from an old Malvina Reynolds song called “there’s a bottom below“.
Yesterday morning it was -11 F when I went out at 6:30 to feed the horses. That was so so low…but today…Oy Vey! -12 F. The cold is bitter, almost mean feeling, like it wants to hurt. I dragged the hay across the pasture on the sled, breathing deeply. Now as I sit here writing I can feel the cold in my chest.
The cold seemed to be freezing the little alveoli and capillaries in my lungs. I have the water on to make some ginger honey tea to warm them up again.
I’ve been locking the horses in their stalls at night and closing up the barn. I give them two buckets of water each which are 3/4 gone when I come in the morning with the rest frozen solid. I have to bring the buckets in to melt so I can fill them again. It amazes the me that the hydrant in the barn keeps flowing! I let them out in the day but feed them their hay in their stalls so they can be out of the bitter wind. We haul the hose down from the house and then back to fill the daytime outside tank with the heater.
This cold feels epic!
However, the pipes in the clinic only froze and didn’t burst, there is a big pile of wood outside to keep our stove fed, we can unplug the freezer that is in the garage and, astoundingly, the ponies are warm under their blankets. Today, from this low below any low I ever knew, the temperature is going to rise! Life is good.
We also keep warm by having friends here. We had a wonderful Shabbat dinner with John and Sharon on John’s 83rd birthday. I made Cholent and Zoe made Challah. I feel so blessed in so many ways.
Lovely…