#29 - Ten Below Morning

 I get up early to the needles of cold I feel coming through the bedroom walls, through the air in the room and into my feet, which somehow always manage overnight to find their way out of the blankets at the foot of the bed. Inside, it’s nearly as cold as outdoors. Zero and below temperatures have a powerful effect on me in the morning; they really get me hopping.

The most difficult stretch is hopping from the edge of the bed to the bedpost where my long-johns are hanging. A little tattered around the ankles and wrists, a bit baggy in the knees, they still manage to do the trick when I need them most. We’ve had a long-standing relationship and they look it.

From there I'm off and running for my pants and shirt, for my toothbrush, then down the ladder into the pantry and into the kitchen to our ancient Glenwood stove. Oh Mother! She's a good old stove. True to her purpose she can make life out of a few sticks of kindling and three or four chunks of wood in very short order - bright orange life where there was none, and she's quick about it.

I'm still hopping and dancing a jig because I'm still barefoot, but rigid habit dictates the coffee water must go on before my socks. Brutally cold water rushes into that big blue kettle, and I clank it down on the stove top. Then I go for the socks, a whole drawer full of them. Two pairs this morning, then the felts and finally my boots. I don't know what warms me faster, all that tugging or the stove.

Meanwhile, a pink rising sun is beginning to glow and twinkle; I can see through the lace-frosted window all of outdoors is wearing a glorious hoarfrost, a complete and perfect coat of crystals on every branch and bit of grass. The first chickadees flit about the feeder. I put on my vest and coat to take water out to the animals. Outside, the air is electric. I slide open the barn door, and there they all are, just as glad to see the light of day as I am. Everyone is fluffed up, feathers and fur against the frozen air, breaths steaming, each vying for first drink of the warm pan of water. Scoops of grain in a pail sound the call to breakfast. My boots make crunching squeaks as I walk about on the packed snow, and the chill echoes my every sound like tinkling glass.

Feeding done, I look up to see smoke rising straight out of the chimney in the dead calm air. Even the top of the chimney has frost on it, sparkling in the light. A figure standing at the window holding her cup tells me coffee’s ready.