wintry weather

Nessie (Bleet) & Jake (Noodle)

It's -22 degrees C this morning - which is very, brrrrr, cold! So cold the back door of my wagon, the dog door, freezes shut and I have to crank the driver's seat all the way down into a reclining position and Jake, who always sits in the back seat, has to crawl into the back by way of this reclined driver's seat causing him great confusion and obstinance. Winnie leaps into the passenger side with her normal exuberance (she took over the passenger side seat her very first car trip with us). It's so cold that once we arrive at our destination and all pile out of the car, les chiens will sometimes hold their paws up one at a time and look at me as if I must be nuts, dragging them out to walk in this ungodly weather. But if we don't have our big long hike then I'll have to deal with restless bored dogs all day which, if your self employed and trying to be productive, is not good. According to all accounts (The Farmer's Almanac, The Globe & Mail and the Canadian Weather Gods) this is supposed to be, for all of Canada, one of the most wintry (cold, cold temps and tons of snow) winters that we've had in years and if December is any indication - that prediction or forecast is bang on. Bummer!

I'm a girl who barely tolerates winter and my ideal would be enough snow down on the ground to keep the ski crowd (downhill & cross country) happy and temperatures cold enough to keep this amount of snow from melting, 0 to -4, and no wind or wind chill please. So ... this arctic like weather is tres horriblé. I must remember this morning to start the car early and let it warm up a bit and to add a few more layers, long john's and undershirts, to my own attire as yesterday morning I was very cold. Brrrrr. I have tried little fleece booties for the dogs but they didn't seem to like them but I may have to give them another try.

I have this book The Golden Compass, unabridged on audio CD from the library to listen to this week. I read this book (the first in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy) years ago and enjoyed it. With all the hoopla of the movie just being released, and listening to a sample of the book being narrated on Writers & Company with Eleanor Wachtel during a two part interview with the author I decided to order the audio CD. I love being read to!