C-C-Cold ...

Yeah, yeah, we're pansies here in the Willamette Valley, but that Arctic cold front that blew through and iced down the country is squatting on us, too. You folks in North Dakota or Minnesota can laugh and talk about it being T-shirt weather here, but it's 15º F. at Steve's house, and that means I have to break out the heavy coat and big gloves to walk the dogs.

Which is a pain, because knotting the poop bag shut with the ski gloves isn't going to happen. Works fine with the thin gloves I usually sport, but they aren't up to the cold.

They were talking record lows,  we've already had a couple-three of those this week, but I don't think we got there last night. Coldest I can recall was in February of … '89, I think. Got into single-digits, I remember walking Roxanne the Chow-Chow at a balmy 8ºF. one ice-crusted morning …

Coldest I've ever experienced was in Chicago twixt Christmas and New Year's, back when I was a PI and had to go there. Right at 0º F. Got there just after the snow stopped, and saw snow sticking to the face of a stop sign, a thing I'd never seen. The wind coming off the Lake  would shove you backward on the frozen sidewalks. I had no idea and wasn't dressed for  it. Brrr ... 

Have to put the Thunder Shirt on the old Cocker Spaniel, I think. The Corgis are double-coated, they don't mind the cold, but the Spaniel hasn't completely grown out the puppy-cut she had when we got her. Got home yesterday after the walk and she was shivering. 

Weather channel says it's 22º F. in Beaverton, but my thermometer isn't agreeing, and while there are lots of things thing that might make it err upward, not too many give a false lower reading. 

Had to pull the hummingbird feeder in and thaw it, it was a block of ice. Soon as I refilled it and stuck it out, there was a female Ana's flitting around my hand to drink. (Ana's don't migrate, but stick around through the winter, and pickings are somewhat lean in December.)