Yet Another Snow Day

We woke up this morning to a white, wintery world, snow blowing and drifting, the morning routine made more cumbersome by the need to slog my way through the drifts. Digging out the chicken house. The horses coated with a fine layer of snow as they stand, stuffing themselves on their bale of haylage. Now there's a word that probably is not in the dictionary. A cross between hay and silage, referring to the large round, plastic wrapped bales. The grass is cut from the fields and only partially allowed to dry. It is then baled up and wrapped in plastic- our plastic is a stylish black and white striped. The grass then partially ferments, making it smell slightly sweet and alcoholic. The horses love it, and it has the added benefit of being ideal for Mizeri who is allergic to hay dust. Saves us from having to soak the ordinary bales of hay in water, a less than pleasant chore when it is minus 15 degrees outside.

Once a week we hitch our Canadian Tire utility trailer up to the Matrix and drive down to the Gulf Shore to the Irving's dairy farm to pick up a bale. That little Toyota is quite the car. A Japanese pickup- one of our friends calls it. From the day we brought it home, we have stuffed bales of hay inside, hauled 40 kg sacks of feed, saddles and other horse gear, dogs, cats, even 20 or so full grown meat king chickens on their way to the butcher. Finally we bought the trailer and many of these things can be hauled outside, rather than in, which improves the smell, particularly when transporting fowl. And now we are asking the poor little workhorse to drag 800 kg bales of haylage, and it rises to the occasion. All that and great fuel economy. Those Japanese know how to build a car.

The snow continued to drift all day. I took my life into my hands and made my way on foot up to Mum's house to feed her cats and make sure the house was still intact after the storm- not so far but the road was alternately snow filled and icy. Mum is off to central Canada, visiting the sisters, both mine and hers. The weather there is no better, apparently, bone chillingly cold. Why aren't we all sensible like my little brother and living in Florida? Sure, we pretend we wouldn't like all that warm weather. Not natural, we claim, living in a place that doesn't have a good bout of bitterly cold weather or proper seasons. Too hot in the summer. Too many bugs. Too many people- tourists. Disneyland. But to be honest, we are just terribly, terribly jealous.

So the snow kept falling, blowing, filling in the driveway that was ploughed out twice already. I guess our snowplough guy is having a prosperous season. Really, we don't mind the snow storms that much. Sure there is the back breaking chore of all that snow shoveling, but we don't have to go anywhere, or do much of anything. There is something special about being snowed in. There is nowhere you have to go, nothing you have to do. School is cancelled so we don't have to go to work. We can light the woodstove, heat up a couple of cups of hot chocolate and check out daytime TV. And we have had 6 days like this already this winter. Beat that, Florida! How many snow days do you guys get in a year? Eh?