January Deep Freeze

 Hi dear reader,

How are you doing? How has your January been going?

Here in Minnesota we are in a bitter cold of winter. It is so cold that Tank doesn't want to go outside any longer than he has to. It is the kind of cold that freezes fingers and noses and causes ice to crystalize on eyelashes. It burns the cheeks with the artic breeze and lungs ache taking in the frigid air. It is cold.

It makes doing vet work challenging. Now that I work on just horses it isn't too bad. I usually work in barns and can get through appointments quickly so that my medications don't freeze and I don't lose feeling in my toes.

It hasn't always been that way.

When I was just out of vet school, we worked at mixed animal practice. We saw all animals. My night on call was Monday. One Monday night in January, I was called out to help a heifer (a cow having her first calf) have her call. It was cold and she was secured in the corner of a three sided shed. The wind blew threw the open side covering half the straw bedding with layer of snow. I shucked off my jacket to work in my scrubs and long sleeve t-shirts. Pulling on my long plastic sleeves, I reached into my bucket of soapy water and cleaned off the heifer. Then, I grabbed my obstetric chains and calf jack. A calf jack is a metal contraption to help the calf navigate the birth canal Guess what? My sleeves froze to the metal of the calf jack. They just peeled right off my arm and adhered to the metal. I ended up getting the calf out. I did lose several layers of skin from touching the calf jack, but the baby was alive.

The next Monday I was on call. The same farmer called with another calving. This time they closed the three sided shed, had a propane heater running and bucket of hot water for my equipment. Thank God for farmers. My fingers were intact when I left that night.

Now that it has been really cold, I spend a lot of time indoors with the kids. We have been experimenting with sourdough. Little Bock 1 loves to make muffins and pizza crust from the sourdough. We also read a lot of books. What do you like to do when the weather is bad?

Hugs,

Allie