By now, I know a storm sky when I see one. One of the benefits of living in the country is that I get to see and understand and read skies, just like the animals do. The donkeys get skittish and irritable when a storm sky arrives; they eat hungrily and push the sheep away.

The sun was bright for much of this frigid day. My Rav4 Toyota seems to have been affected by the cold; alarms and warnings are going off, and the dashboard symbols and signals aren’t working. I’m getting a steady “back seat belts” sign, and nobody is in the back seat.

The horn alarm keeps going off. The engine is running; I’ll try to get it to a dealer in the morning or afternoon, weather permitting. The cold last night was wicked.

Tonight will be mostly snow mixed with ice and rain, the new order of things. Mother Nature can’t quite see to make up her mind, so she’s doing messy (blackout weather). I think she’s beginning to get our attention. She will keep at it until she does.

We have gasoline in the garage and a generator primed and ready to go.

Depending on which hour I look at the weather channel, the snow will be two inches, four inches, six inches,  eight inches, or 12 inches. We are ready for all of it and none of it.

We continue to give the sheep, and the donkeys second cut hay for nutrition and grain for energy. Socks came into the pole barn stall where her son Pumpkin died Saturday; she seemed to be looking for him; they were always together but she settled for some grain. I rolled the snowblower out by the back porch if we needed it.

It’s 24 degrees now; it feels balmy. That’s about 30 degrees more than it was last night.