Okay, zero is chilly, but when I take my dog out at 6 a.m. for her walk, it's so beautiful. Enormous purple plumes of smoke rise off all the downtown buildings and sit in the sky against that weird pre-blue dawn color of winter in Minneapolis. My dog, who is coal black, burrows in the snow drifts and when she pops out again, her fur looks like she was covered in sparkles. Yeah, it's cold and tiring and messy and icy, but really, it's incredibly wonderful.

James, I may be wrong here... but isn't that a chapter from a book entitled "Giants In The Earth"? A book I read in Jr High? In Fergus Falls, MN? On a very cold winter day when climbing inside a warm cow carcass seemed reasonable?

If I remember correctly, our hero froze to death in the cow carcass.

Whatever. That's why I'm Dave In Arizona these days, posting from the back patio where it's 72 degrees and the sun always shines. We have cows 3 miles away.

They're contented cows, and I can't imagine climbing inside of one for shelter when the 110 temps hit us in August.

Dave, I think you're conflating GIANTS IN THE EARTH with Wilhelm Moberg's UNTO A GOOD LAND, part of the EMIGRANTS series. In that story, which takes place around Taylor's Falls, MN, the father kills his prized ox in a snowstorm in order to save the life of his little son (the incident is also in the movie version).

The major difference, of course, is that Rolvaag wrote about Norwegians, while Moberg wrote about Swedes.

applewood and cherrywood chips for the barbeque kettle. mmmm, makes dead cow finer.

around these parts, when the car stalls dead in drifts, I can settle for Applebee's.

it was still blinkin' cold this morning. even worse was ordering a fuel oil fill at $3.24 a gallon. just paid $3.60 a gallon for diesel for the shop heater in the garage.

don't think I'll work on my table saw cabinet tonight, either. pull a second fleece out of the wicker basket and watch electrons die, screaming, as they hit a screen.

I've heard of a man named Flavius Josephus Rowe killing and gutting a cow for shelter during a blizzard in eastern Colorado in the late 1920s or early 1930s. He was a neighbor of my grandparents at the time.

This morning, it was 32 degrees. Zero, if you are C inclined. I hear people complain about this, believe it or not. But by next week, I'm sure it will be 75 degrees daily. That will be nice. Then at the end of March, the afternoon heat index will be hovering around 100 degrees.

Okay, I exaggerate, a little. It will probably take until the end of June to reach 100 degress, but I’m sure that be the beginning of May, we will have had several days of low- to mid-nineties (with the humidity factored in, of course). Once that big, red "L" settles in the Gulf of Mexico, that's it. The humidity at that point becomes the enemy, especially when the winds stop.

So enjoy your winter. You can always put more clothes on to get comfortable in the cold, but at some point you have to quit taking off clothes in the heat, lest ye be arrested.

It seems that our complaining is seasonal, just as the seasons are. We're sick of winter by the end of it; sick of the cold temps, the piling snow, the gray skies. Spring passes quickly, and on into summer, we're sick of that by the end of the season too. It's too hot, too dry, too humid. Then autumn passes quickly, and we're back into winter again. And back to waiting for spring.

Are we only happy with the happy mediums of spring and autumn?

The thing is, I wouldn't trade it for warm weather year-round. The lack of variation would drive me crazier than an extra-cold winter does now.

When it's 20 below, there is no amount of clothing I can layer on to be warm. The cold will find its way through, especially if there's any wind. I can't add extra layers outside my shoes, and there's only so many layers of socks I can wear before the shoes stop fitting.

Meanwhile, I have yet to experience intolerable heat, and I've travelled through every desert in the country in the height of the summer hot-season. I hiked up and down Sabino Canyon (outside Tucson) during the day when it was about 110. It felt nice. I was even wearing 2 shirts at the time (although they both came off by the end of the hike). Even the humid 100+ degree heat of the southeast doesn't bother me. I'm like a lizard, I'm happy in the heat as long as I'm not burning my feet on the rocks.

Yet for some unexplainable reason, I live in a place where no self-respecting lizard would ever choose to live.

But still, I don't see why people are acting like this cold snap is going to be a long one... I've been watching the forecast, and it looks like it'll start warming back up in just 2 days. That's not a long time at all, not like the crap we were getting in the past month and a half. Thursday's high is something like 17 degrees. Compared to this, that's tropical, and I'm looking forward to it. Tuesday is almost over already, so really, there's just 1 more day of unbearable cold, and then spring can start to slowly creep in. (Weather.com's 10-day outlook doesn't show any more single-digit highs for as far as they can see, and it'll be March soon, so I'm optimistically assuming that we'll be done with the brutal cold after this one.)

However I do think it's justified to complain about the bitter cold, because even though I work and live inside, it does have a significant impact on my life. And I believe our host can understand this issue: cold kills cars. My car will always start in the coldest of temps, but that doesn't mean the cold weather doesn't do untold amounts of damage to various parts, and cause significant wear-and-tear throughout. My car repair costs would be half as much if I didn't live here. (Then again, last time I had major work done, it was the result of blowing my water pump in the heat of the southwest deserts, so I guess I should point out that cars can be damaged by extreme temperatures on both ends of the spectrum.)

Anyway, as I recall, the Honda-heater problems wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't so effin' cold.

The one gentlemen mentions gutting the cow, but I would think you'd leave the guts in. That would seem to be the best part for keeping warm.
I heard the Indians used to make it with buffalo all the time. And that's how North Dakota's population grew.

. . . . So he could fit. There's not a lot of excess space inside a land mammal's body cavity if all the parts are in their customary places.

Are you the famous Lars Walker who writes exciting novels of medieval Norskeland?
So, if Rolvaag and Moberg fought with swords in a longboat, Rolvaag would win, right?
The crawling inside of cows, oxen and bison apparently happened in real life a few times, as well as in novels. In fact, it seems one of those things no novelist could ever dream up, unless first reading about it in the journal of a pioneer.
The question about to gut or not to gut is sort of mooooot by the time you've opened up the ex-beast enough to crawl in.....
It would be tempting to point out that Swedes were known to try this bovine shelter gimmick in July to get out of the sun, but I'm above that.

Is it just me, or is washing the car an older person's thing?

Not that you're that old, James, hehe.

But really, it almost never occurs to my husband and me to wash the cars. I went to a car wash before my daughter was born, but only because they vacuum it out, and I was 8 months pregnant and in no condition to do it myself in the heat.

We always see the couple 2 doors down washing their cars. They're older than us, probably in their late 40s. Sometimes I look at their car, then back at mine, and wonder if I should be washing the car too. But then I think "Nah. It'll probably rain in a couple of days"
I think in the 6 years we've been married we've probably washed our cars about 3 times.

All true, but hot never hurts like cold can. The sheer relentlessness of this winter is what is getting to me. Cold, cold, snow, cold, snow, my-eyes-are-freezing-shut cold, snow...it's just endless. In winter I come home from work and the act of removing my work clothes and putting on my casuals is like a religious rite. In summer, I come home, throw on a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.

And, man, I miss grilling.

I certainly don't wash my car in the winter. As soon as I drive into the street after exiting the car wash, everything is sloshed and spattered and coated with a nasty rime of salt and exhaust and other assorted road dirt, anyway, so what's the point? I must admit, though, that in the past couple of days I have been tempted to run my Chevy through the ol' AutoWash just to melt the icicles that have been hanging off my back bumper. I do baby my car in the winter, allowing it to warm up for at least 15 minutes in the morning when it is below 10 degrees. And I have synthetic oil put into it, as my dad swears it reduces the wear and tear from really cold and really hot weather.

I do wash my car maybe two or three times during the summer, if it looks like there is not going to be rain for a while. It can get pretty dusty in the Northwoods of WI in August.

And I agree with someone upthread, it is NEVER warm enough for me. I have stood on the airport tarmac in Jamaica when it was 110 and humid, and been perfectly comfortable. I wear winter clothes year round at the office as in the winter it is always cold, and in summer they blast the AC. The men who dictate the temperature are those who wear suits to work every day, so, yeah, they complain about it being too hot all the time. I would love for the inside air temp to always be 73.