Come spring, everything all the sudden is a lot easier. I was struck by this fact today.

No more putting on multiple layers and having to wear gloves, sometimes two lefts or two rights because I can’t find one of the other.
No more clunking around in heavy boots with stiff soles that hurt my feet.
No more having to get from Point A to Point B the long way because the paths are snowed in.
No more having to dig for manure then chip away at it when finding it.
No more having to use a headlight that fails to stay in place, morning and night.
No more having to keep gloves on because it’s too cold to do otherwise.
No more having to bust open the water in the buckets and fill the same with water from the woodstove.
No more having to attempt to start a wood stove fire without kindling. (This never works. And the time spent trying to get the 2@#$%^ wood to ignite is equal to the amount of time it would take to go outside and bust up some kindling with a axe.
No more darkness at 4:00 p.m. and knowing that it will remain this way until I go to bed at 11:00 p.m.

Goat shed

No more having to scrape the ice and snow off the vehicles before going someplace.
No more punching through knee deep snow.
No more having to walk the horses around the loop because the trails are so punchy.
No more backaches, the result of shoveling heavy, wet, snow.
No more being unable to get into animal pens because the snow has drifted up next to the entrance.
No more having to put blankets on goats and horses and having to take them off in the mornings.
No more having to move the chickens back up into their roost.
No more having to dry the clothes in the living room. (We do not have a drier.)
No more seasonal affective disorder.
No more being under the weather for days on end.
No more having to consider exit points when walking the horses around the loop because of the erratic plow schedule.
No more fears about running off the road into the soft, snowy side of the road.
No more wishing that I could work in the Playground of Higher Knowledge but can’t because the snow’s so deep.
No more sitting on a cold outhouse seat.
No more fearing that because the snow’s so deep, the horses are going to step over the rails in the enclosure.
No more messing around with boot cleats – they always come off.
No more worries about collapsing roofs.
No more having to deal with frozen pipes.
No more having to wear long underwear.
No more cabin fever.
No more ripped plastic on the hoop house.
No more moose on the road (wrong) side of the snow berms.
No more blown out goat shed windows.
No more short days and long nights.
That is, until next October.

Next: 122. 5/4/22: Hrimfara at age 10