In case you thought I was exaggerating about the wind...

...this happened north of Cut Bank, sometime between ten p.m. and daylight, Friday night:

I mentioned in the last post about the cold front that rolled in. I forgot to add that it hit like a freight train, packing an extreme burst of wind, which we somehow slept right through. Possibly because our roof has been rattling non-stop for days so it would take an actual freight train smashing into the house to get our attention.

Unfortunately for the company that's trying to put up this large industrial building, that's the effect the wind blast had on their construction site. Instead of a two story steel beam structure, they now have a very expensive pile of scrap metal. Even more depressing? This is the second time. In a month. .

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Weather or Not

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Last week the wind blew my dog away. Okay, not away, like hello Toto, welcome to Oz. More like she was loping along minding her own business and that of a bunch of dumbass heifers, and she hit a patch of frozen snow and the wind slammed her broadside and sent her skidding like a black and white hockey puck. I don't speak dog, but whatever she said was not fit for young ears.

Since that time we've had high wind warnings nearly every day. Around here, that means 50 mph and up. Anything less is just a stiff breeze. There is good news, though. Winds like these in December are pretty much always the result of warm weather masses. On Thursday and Friday the temperature climbed all the way up to the forties. All of the packed snow on our steeply slanted driveway melted, at least on the surface, so we were walking/driving around on a solid sheet of wet ice, canted at a 5% grade.

But that was yesterday.

Our weather is nothing if not schizophrenic. At ten-thirty last night it was thirty-five degrees, I could see every star in the sky horizon to horizon, and of course the wind was howling. This morning? Dead calm. Clear sky. Half and inch of snow. All it cost us to get rid of the wind? Every single degree. It's right on zero. Today's high: ten.

No worries though. Tomorrow it's supposed to be thirty. Too bad the warm front will be ushered in on another damn  Chinook wind.



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Merry Christmas

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As close as we've managed to get to a family portrait this year.

Wishing you and yours all the best of Christmas and the New Year!

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Oh, Brother

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First, there was this:



And then this:



And that's why I don't let my brother play with my toys:

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The Last Cruise

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Survival of the Most Fitted

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Our cold snap has broken for the moment, last time I looked it was 12 degrees ABOVE zero. Doesn't sound like much, but since it was -22 F yesterday morning, it feels downright balmy by comparison. During the past week of whining here and on Twitter about the extreme temperatures (lowest recorded hereabouts was -30 F down by the Del Bonita Port of Entry), the question I was asked most often is, "How can you even go outside in that?" So I decided we should get dressed for morning chores together, figuratively speaking.

First off is the socks. Well, after my underwear, but we're not getting quite that personal, although I will say it involves red and black animal print. Hey, it's what's on the clearance rack, and it's not like anybody's gonna see it under all these layers.

When the temperature dips below zero, I go with two pairs of socks. The first are light cotton, to absorb moisture and yes, sweat, because feet will do that when you're working hard regardless of temperature. Then I add a pair of wool socks over top.

Next is long underwear. For the extreme temperatures, I break out the UnderArmour. Yes, it really is worth the price, warmer than anything else I've tried, although the consensus is it seems to have been designed for people who don't have butts. If you do happened to come equipped with baggage in the rear compartment, you'll find they have a tendency to creep down in the back, so you want to have a shirt that's long enough to tuck in or you might end up with a cold draft down your butt crack. And yes, the long underwear goes on after the socks. It holds them up, so they don't slide down and leave that annoying strip of bare skin, or get sucked down around your ankles by your boots, which drives me nuts.

Over the UnderArmour I'll either add jeans or thick cotton sweatpants. Jeans tend to bind up under coveralls, so it's easier to move if you wear sweatpants. How much you can layer on depends on whether you need to get on a horse. Too much bulk and you can't lift your foot high enough to get it in the stirrup. Or even the four wheel drive pickup. Around here, we don't use the horses much in this kind of weather because our frequent freeze/thaw cycles make the ground really icy. Add a layer of snow and the footing is downright treacherous, so we manage with the four-wheeler, pickups, tractors, and a really good dog.

For the top half, I start with a turtleneck, then add either a fleece pullover or a hooded sweatshirt. Then comes a silk scarf wound twice around my neck, tied in front, the loose ends tucked into my shirt. Yep, just like the old buckaroos, and there's a reason we're still using them. Absolutely nothing can replace a good silk scarf for warmth and functionality, we've got a whole basket full of fancy neck warmers that tried and failed.

So, here's the inner layers:

For the outer layers, it's Carhartt all the way, or something similar. Canvas outer shell, quilted thermal lining, and always a hood to keep the cold wind from whipping down the back of my neck. 

I've tried every kind of snow boots imaginable, my current favorites are Muck boots. They are warm, come up to your knees to keep the snow out, and are waterproof for slogging through muddy corrals and falling into snow-covered creeks, not that I'm prone to such a thing. The inner layer--sweatpants or jeans--is tucked into the top of the boots and the coveralls pulled down on the outside. Combined, it keeps the snow out of the tops of your boots no matter how deep it gets. 

The final layer is head and hand gear. First off, you've gotta have a cap with ear flaps. My husband and dad usually go with the old style woolen Scotch caps. I prefer this fleece-lined model because the flaps come all the way around and under my chin. If the wind chill is really kicking butt, I'll add a fleece neck warmer over top of everything so I can pull it up over my mouth and lower face. The goggles are a new thing. My brother-in-law is a ski patrolman and gave us a couple of good pairs. I started out just wearing them when it was snowing, because wind-driven snow is like having your eyeballs sandblasted. Then I realized these goggles cover most of my face, all the way down below my cheekbones, which adds a ton to the warmth factor. Now I wear them whenever it's really bitter out there. 

For my hands, I start with a pair of light knitted gloves. Then I put a pair of my husband's insulated work gloves over top, a couple of sizes too big for me. Oversized is key, because it creates a nice layer of air between the two pairs of gloves, which is vital to keeping hands warm. Plus, if I need to do something that requires fine motor skills, I can pull off the outside glove and my fingers aren't completely exposed. If I'm going to be out on the four-wheeler or a horse for an extended period of time, I'll swap those outside gloves for a pair of fleece-lined leather mittens for even more warmth. 

When I'm finally ready to go outside, it looks something like this:

Just for the fun of it, after I was all fitted up today I stepped on the bathroom scale. My full winter gear weighs fifteen pounds. I figure I've already burned a hundred calories just getting dressed, and who knows how many more lugging all that around? So that means I get to eat this extra piece of Christmas fudge, right? 

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Just Chillin'

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Last night it was so cold, even sound couldn't travel. 

Or so it seemed. At minus twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, every living thing tucks into whatever shelter they can find as soon as the sun goes down. And thank the Lord for small favors, there wasn't so much as a breath of wind. Combined, it added up to utter silence.

It's a weird thing, complete silence. Something most people will never experience. Silence is not the same as quiet. In a quiet house, there is still the hum of the refrigerator, the hiss of the furnace. On a quiet summer evening, the owls, coyotes and cows keep up a near constant chatter. But on a cold, still winter night fifty miles from the nearest town, when the animals are hunkered down conserving every bit of energy, there is no ambient noise. No traffic. No airplanes overhead. No barking dog down the street. Nothing.  

Silence makes your ears ring. As if they can't fathom or tolerate the lack of stimulus, so they create their own. Standing on top of the ridge on a clear, moonless night, with the Milky Way so bright and close it feels as if the atmosphere has dissolved, you could almost believe the stars are singing.  

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Snow Day!

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Not our first of the year by a long shot, but the first storm that's rolled in packing enough of a punch that we didn't even try to send the kid to school. Eighteen inches of snow forecast, sub-zero temperatures and possibility of zero visibility--it's just not worth the risk.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean the rest of us get to hunker in the house, except for my husband who had hip replacement surgery two weeks ago and is therefore cosigned to lounging in the house until after the first of the year. That means I'll be the one out there with Dad trying to get tractors and pickups to start and run in the bitter cold, slogging around in the white stuff to keep everything fed. Animals generate body heat from what they eat, so good feed is more important than ever at times like this. We'll be out there tossing hay for as long as the visibility allows. Then we, too, may be forced to hit the couch. But only for safety's sake.

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