Freezing Cold
This is Prairie Kid. I live in Alberta, Canada. I am the youngest of the Canadian Brothers. I live in the prairies and it is winter time here, even though it is only the first day of December. As far as I am concerned, winter starts the very day my thermometer says it does.
This morning, I looked at my thermometer and it read -17 Celsius. Now, for you folks that don’t know anything about Celsius, that reads about 1 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, that isn’t really too cold. However, on the prairies, when we have a high wind, anything that reads below zero Celsius is freezing cold. Today, unfortunately, was just one of those days that we had a high wind.
I check my thermometer every morning before I go outside to do my chores. That way, I know exactly how cold it is and how warm I need to dress. I always dress appropriately for the weather because you never know when it could be a life and death situation. Not dressing for the weather can be very dangerous, especially on the prairies because we do get sudden changes in weather here and sometimes, without notice. At least if I dress too warmly, I can take off some of my clothing.
Today, is a busy day at my ranch. I am building a new barn and today is the day the building contractor is coming to meet with me to discuss the building plans. I am very excited about the new barn because it has been a long time in coming. Money has been tight for me for the past few years. I have wanted to build this new barn for over five years and I’m finally going to be able to do it.
I will be spending a lot of time outside today so I not only want to dress appropriately but I also want to have a good hot breakfast before I go. I cook myself some nice oatmeal and a couple of fried eggs and a glass of orange juice. That will tie me over until dinner time. I will be ready to go outside and face the cold after my breakfast.
No matter how much I prepared for the cold today, I really wasn’t expecting the freezing cold temperature that I was faced with as soon as I stepped outside. That wind just tore right through me and it was bitterly, crisp and cold. I was tempted to go back inside my nice warm house but I knew that wouldn’t get my barn built.
I met the contractor down at the construction site and he was almost an hour late because his pickup truck would not start in this cold. By the time he got there, I was like an icicle and could barely talk or move. However, I withstood the cold and got down to business.
Once the contractor and I started talking about building the barn, the cold started to go away. I don’t know if it was because the wind had finally stopped blowing so hard or if it was because the excitement warmed me up. I have a feeling it was more the excitement than the wind. I didn’t even notice how fast the time went and before I knew it the contractor had to go because it was lunch time.
I went back into my house and that is when the cold finally started getting to me. Oh, I had terrible chills up and down my spine and I could not warm up no matter what I did. I was afraid that I had gotten frost-bite while I was out in that cold. I checked myself over to make sure and thank goodness, I was okay. There was no sign of frost-bite. I decided that I would have a nice hot cup of tea, put a couple of big logs on the fire and curl up in my lazy-boy chair with my flannel blanket. Pretty soon, I was back to being toasty warm and I loved it. I decided that I was going to take a break from the cold for the rest of the afternoon and stay right where I was.
Moral of this Story:
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