This continuing punishment at the hands of Mother Nature is a good indication that someone really ticked her off this time!

Speaking of ticked off, the first few winters living here I got real tired of hearing the following after some very legitimate weather whines. “What did you expect? This is Wisconsin. Get used to it!”

It made it easy to forget all of Chicago’s “lake effect snow” that could shut down a city of four million after one day of “incoming” from Lake Michigan.

More than once I had abandoned my car somewhere on the Kennedy Expressway during a blinding snowstorm and trudged to the nearest exit in order to identify where I had left it in the whiteout!

The difference here, however, is the bone-chilling cold that seems to leave your words hanging frozen in the air right after leaving your mouth! That very seldom happens in the Windy City.

However, after more than two decades in this very special patch of Heaven, we have accepted December through March as the price to be paid in return for the rest of all the wonders of nature that Wisconsin offers. This firm belief, by the way, is a theme that our family and friends in Chicago are truly sick of hearing, and have asked us to leave it at the state border on our way down.

Because of that rule, none of them are ever going to hear about all the days I have taken Socks outside several times to visit what only can be called a truly rustic and freezing bathroom. After putting her through that ordeal, I often think that if I had to deal with a bathroom like that, I would probably prefer a diaper.

This morning, I spent a little extra ‘doggy potty” time in the 20-degree whipping wind, retrieving a recycle bin and garbage can from our long, driveway on a hill. Poor Socks limped all the way back to the house and I had to stop several times on the way to be sure that my nose had not fallen off! If you find one being blown around, it’s not mine.

Only seven weeks till SPRING!

***

I’m not going to reveal who sent the following to me for obvious reasons, but on a very frigid morning in Hillsboro, it was just the kind of craziness that I needed to put a smile on my face. Hopefully, it does the same for you!

The Lone Ranger and Tonto walked into a saloon and sat down to enjoy a couple of beers.

After a few minutes, a cowboy walked in and said, “Who owns the big white horse outside?”

The Lone Ranger stood up, hitched up his gun belt, and said, “I do...why?”

The cowboy looked at the masked man and said, “I just thought you would like to know that your horse is about dead out there!”

The Lone Ranger and Tonto rushed outside and, sure enough, Silver was ready to die from heat exhaustion. The Lone Ranger got his beloved horse some water and soon Silver was starting to feel a little better.

The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, “Tonto, I want you to run around Silver and see if you can create enough of a breeze to cool him off and make him feel better.”

Not being able to do anything else for his great, white horse except wait, the Lone Ranger returned to the saloon to finish his beer.

A few minutes later, another cowboy struts into the bar and asks, “Who owns that big white horse outside?”

The Lone Ranger stands up again and states, “I do. What’s wrong with him this time?”

The cowboy looks him right in the eye and states, “Nothing, but you left your injun runnin!”