COLD

I was listening to the radio yesterday and the morning show announcer made a call to a family diner in Minnesota.

JS: Hi, who is this?
Dk: Derek.
JS: Hi Derek, this is Johnny Stone in the Morning, we are serving the New York/ New Jersey area, you're on the air. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
Dk: No go ahead.
JS: Well, I hear that the weather there is -28 is that true?
Dk: Yes that's true.
JS: And that the windchill factor makes it -58?
Dk: Yep.
JS: Well, Derek, how do you cope with the weather out there?
Dk: Well I work indoors in the diner so its no big deal.
(Outdoor diners must be awful up there.)

JS: But what about when you have to leave the diner?
Dk: Well, we just dress in layers here.
(Cause Minnesota law allows for that kind of breach of fashion.)

JS: Well what about your car, do you have to plug it in at night?
Dk: No, I have an automatic starter, every two hours it starts the car to warm the engine for a while and then shuts off.
JS: And what about pets? Your animals must hate the cold.
Dk: Well, my dog, she's an indoor dog, she doesn't go outside.
(That must get messy after a while...)

Speaking of the cold, I've been working on the goat farm in the mornings before heading out to the store to open by 10. There's a water heater under the sink, and a heat lamp on the faucet. Sometimes in the morning I will come in and the cat will be sleeping in the sink under the heat lamp. But this morning I came in and even though the heat lamp was on, the faucet was still frozen. I couldn't give the goats fresh water so I had to go around the barn with a hammer, breaking the ice on the tops of their water buckets. Its miserable out, no wonder they refuse to leave the safety of the barn.

I am waiting for the temperature to get to about 28. I want to go ice skating again but I can't when the high for the day is 19 degrees.