Up to -14*?

Can you get "up to" -14? That seems like is should be a "down to", but if it was colder when I woke up, I guess that is an "up to"? In any case it is cold. Coldy McCold,cold. The horses were wearing beards of white from their breath freezing.

 Yesterday we had a bright sunny morning of sledding on the S. family sledding hill. I envied Bill S. his so cool cross country skis. But, I suppose if I want to get out and about in the snow I could hop on a horse....
Sledding was fun, and made me miss the 6-man runner sled we had as children. You could pile everyone on that sucker and fly down a hill, each bump dislodging the man on top. Broke a collarbone that way... but still, the pure fun of sledding with friends and speed and eye-tearing cold. This hill isn't quite as fast, but after a few runs we had a nicely packed run that was pretty good.

Heading to the hill

Good enthusiasm, overly ambitious for first run.

Middlest and S.'s Youngest get a push off from Youngest and instruction from Eldest. We all have our roles....

This is as far as I got in yesterday's blog before life swept me right away from my warm computer chair and back to Midwestern Winter. Our fearless Horse Advisor for the 4-H Club scheduled a  horse lesson for the club kids interested in horses. As usual, it was to include taking our horses with us- but Mother Nature's plans were for us to go horseless. We met in the newly rebuilt barn of one of our members. The barn had burnt to the ground last year in a scary fire that fortunately did not injure anyone. It is big and new and beautiful now, with wonderful bells and whistles. Many of us strode down the wide aisles with a tinge of "what if" in our hearts. As friend, TMJ, put it "I realize that a building like this comes with great responsibility, but, Lord, if you were to think I was up to the task, I'd sure like to give it a try!" And, wonderfully, even though subzero temperatures made the world quite chilly, we were warmed by layers of clothes and horsey companionship. I counted 21 horse-crazed souls( well, okay, a few were pitiful younger siblings dragged along for the frostbite) showing up to get started on 2011's horse year. Wow. As I've mentioned- quite a club!  As noon crept near, I ditched Middlest with the nutso horse people and raced (or not, as the roads are akin to a well-used kiddie ski slope) home to supervise the arrival of teenagers. Ominous, I know.