For the record, I live in western Nebraska. As the crow flies I'm 10 miles from north east Colorado, 2 1/2 hours from Denver, and down I-80, 90 miles from Wyoming.
We had an early cold snap last week. Like, never got above 10 and add in the wind chill. And then, add in I spend part of my day working outside.
BRRR!
Plus my Dh works outside. Sooo, we both have the need for extra clothes. Layers, properly done keep you warm, but the amount of extra laundry is insane, since we both have dirty jobs.
Back in the 80's, I worked in an unheated warehouse, and in January, it never got above 0. Like to dang froze to death. Plus I grew up on a large farm/ranch. The cattle have to be cared for, does not matter how cold it is, you gotta get yer fanny out there, and feed, and take care of cold babies and mad mommies, etc. Tractors don't wanna start, horses don't wanna leave the barn, dogs hide behind the horse! We checked cows, for calving reasons, at 10 and 2 pm, and if it was too cold, we brought them to the house, and stuck them in front of the old propane stove in the basement, until morning. Then in the morning, ya gotta go round up the cow, get her to the barn, and pack the baby back to mama. By then everyone is tired, and cranky. Mama cow is stressed, baby is stressed, humans are exhausted. Thankfully most of the time it was a happy reunion.
Sometimes it was a snorting, cow snot, I'll run your butt over mess. Thankful for good cow dogs!
Then, I marry a guy who picked up train wrecks for a living! After that, he picked up semi wrecks! Emergency service jobs. I got recruited more than once to go out and help. Not with the trains.
But truck wrecks. Yup, it's a joy to stand on I-80, flagging Indy racer wanna be's, in the freezing a** cold, for 8 or so hours, so the rest of the crew can transfer the load to a new truck, and clean up the mess. Not only do you dang near freeze, *dear driver, did you not see the lighted sign board a mile or so ago that said you should slow down, one lane ahead! * *Did you not see the 400 yards of big orange cones? Did you not see the person (me) in the hunter orange, waving to big orange flags? Guess not!* Then you had the nerve to flip me the bird when I threw my flag and hit your Caddy!
Never mind you dang near ran my b88t over!
Kudos to the state trooper who chased them down, and gave them a ticket!
I'll take summer any time! Only need one tank top, one pair of shorts, or on days off, a sun dress, some bug spray and I'm good! Unlike today, long sleeved shirt, t-shirt over that, light jacket, then coat, jeans, then wind pants, wool socks, winter boots, mittens, stocking cap. Yada, yada, blah, blah!
And then, for the love of Pete. THe last dog I restrained had fleas, and then I have fleas crawling in my hair and down my light jacket!
So I wash my hair at the vet hospital with dog shampoo, strip off my 2 shirts and jacket, toss them in the wash, pull on a scrub top, and now I'm chilled because we'd been working cattle in the back and the back door is hanging open because my boss is a dip and must be MAN o pausal! Or he just likes the smell of cow pooty!
However, all of that, it was a good day! My new granddaughter arrived about 6:30 p.m.
Emerson Paige, newest member of the family! Going to see her in the morning!
I should also add, since keeping track of the sun/seasons ie: Solstice and Equinox, I don't mind the dark so much....because I know that come Winter Solstice, the days start getting longer again.
