Today is the coldest day of this brutal cold stretch, and the last day for brutal temperatures, at least for a while. Tomorrow the temperature will rise to close to 30, a heat wave for this January. We are going to Albany today to kick off the Refugee Food program. I’ll post about that later.

It was -20 this morning, but I think we are over the hump. The farm and its animals got through it. We are very lucky. Snow an milder temperatures tomorrow – about 30 degrees – and in the 40’s for a day or so towards the end of the week.

The battered farmers are counting the days until Spring, and there is a sense of relief here, and I imagine, over most of the country. We are calling it the Community Of Cold, even the denizens of the left and the right are in accord – it was cold.

I’m pleased and a bit proud at how the farm has come through this bitter cold. The sheep and the donkeys are fine, they have enjoyed the extra grain and hay, they all seem healthy and hearty. The dogs, ever adaptable, took it in stride. Fate loved sitting out with the sheep in the cold, Red did his work and came into the house.

Gus was all over the place he handled the cold in stride.

The barn cats continue their two week hiatus in the basement (with cat beds and scratching posts and a roaring oil heater to keep them warm.) They’ll come out Tuesday or Wednesday. Fate and Gus have thrived out in the snow, playing, chasing each other, diving into the drifts. Gus’s megaesophagus has not sapped his energy or playfulness one bit, even in sub-zero temperatures.

The dogs don’t mind coming in and sitting by the wood stove fire.

The wood stoves were heroic, they burned day and night and kept the house warm in the high 60’s, even on the most brutal nights. The cars started up each morning. The water line to the barn didn’t freeze, neither did any of the pipes inside of the house.

The baseboard heater we installed in the bedroom kept us warm and so did our heated blankets. We both clearly remember nights when we had to sleep downstairs because the bedroom was so cold, and that was when it was not nearly as cold as it is now.

Our farm was thoughtfully and carefully built, our basement was dry and never got colder than 55 degrees.

Our insulation of the frost-free pump out to the pasture also paid off, the line stayed open, even at this unprecedented stretch of frigid cold.

Maria did most of the shoveling and feeding, but I got my licks in. We have learned a lot on the farm here, and we handled it very well I think. I hope people get their power back soon and the rest of the country can warm up.

Many people caught it worse than we did, and I am thinking of them today.