#183. To Weather the Weather.

  I believe that as a Canadian, something that has been ingrained into my genetic make-up, is an intensive desire to share my views, to whoever will listen, about the woes I have to face day to day regarding the weather. If you add to that, that I'm also a farmer, I have to make a concious effort to not babble on endlessly about what Mother Nature is choosing to subject me to, and how having to deal with the weather is making it more difficult to do what I do for a living.

  However, there's a small piece of me that relishes bundling up and going out into weather so cold that no one has any business trying to function in. And even though I'll complain about it, there's nothing that makes me feel more Canadian than walking across the yard to begin my chores in -40 degree temperatures, thinking "Ya, I got this!"

  It's a pretty safe bet, that winter in Canada is cold. But if you were going to put all of those eggs into that basket, you would be sadly mistaken.

  Earlier this winter, when I was trying to get my Christmas lights up in the bitter cold, I made the decision to scale back my yard lighting significantly. The thing that was going to save my ass was the spruce tree we have in our yard, that I leave the lights in all year around. It's gotten too tall and thick to have to bother with every year, and because I use clear bulbs in it, it's pretty convenient to just add it to the string when I have my Clark Griswold moment in the yard, plugging the cords together, as angels gather to sing hallelujah.

  The tree was heavy with snow, and looked like a Christmas card.  The bulbs were going to reflect off of all the snow, and it was going to look awesome. I burrowed through the snow to get under the tree without disturbing any branches to make the connections. Turning it all on the next day, even though it was less than usual, would still be magnificent. Because of the snow, and the cold, and the lights twinkling off the snow laden boughs. Except overnight it warmed up, and the wind blew, and when I looked out the window with my morning coffee in hand, the tree didn't have any snow left in it.

  It still looked nice, but I had counted on the weather, and it had let me down.

  Fast forward to today.

  One of the nice things about going on a winter vacation, is to be able to get on a plane and leave behind the cold and the snow, and the dark, that is my winter, for just a little while. Preferably, if it's so cold that the airline has to have a bit of a debate about the safety of taking off in it. That's what is required to get the maximum effect of a reprieve from the icy cold. Yet, while most of the USA, and Canada struggle through what has been a long string of cold snaps this winter, I'm sitting at about 4 degrees above freezing, in an uncharacteristic warm spell. It's certainly not something I'm going to cancel my vacation over, but a little bit of wind chill might have been nice.

  So, the only way to turn this all around is for the warm weather to stick around, until I return, boozed, bronzed and baked by a tropical paradise. To step of the plane, knowing that winters back has been broken, and the remainder of it is going to be a cake walk. It shouldn't be too difficult to achieve, as the long range forecast is looking quite positive.

  I'm pretty sure the weather is going to cooperate,

  ..........but I'm not counting on it.