Winter Blues

A while ago I marveled at the fact that my blogging frequency seems to increase as the year progresses.  That struck me as odd, since I avoid the cold and stay close to the wood stove all winter long, mostly attached to a computer or with my nose shielded by a book.
So why then would I not be writing or blogging?
It is clearly a case of selective memory, or elective forgetfulness.  I can't stand winter, and that's bad enough, but I especially can't deal with the double whammy of taxes and winter.
It's sort of like DEATH and TAXES are just rubbing it in that they will get you in the end.  So I go through a blue funk and wait for better things in spring.

This winter is one of those up and down ones with sporadic nice days (well, nice for winter, entirely too cool for my ordinary expectation of good weather, but I will make allowances, and accept a sunny fifties as nice, when it is in January), only to drive the breath out of you the next morning with blasted arctic cold in single digits with wind-speeds near highway cruising rates.
Blustery, that's called.
My voluntary brain freeze immobilizes the best of intentions at times like that.

Now then to the warm ray of sunshine that managed a short-lived thaw:
Decibel, who else.
None of the dogs are intimidated by the winter weather, and Decibel, like any good Briard, delights in the routine of doing the chores.  I was setting up the cow barn for the soon to follow milking.  I set out the feed, ready the buckets, and after that I go and feed the horses and donkey, so the Ruby has some time to pee and poop.  Believe me, nothing makes a cold morning more miserable than having to duck and then clean up a cow's morning evacuations.   They save up over night.
Anyhow, the very last thing I do in the barn before braving the trek (it's a quarter mile ONE way) to the horse barn, is to feed the dratted cats.  (After Buckwheat scratched me during a hissy fit when I was trying to administer care and medication for a large gash the cats are on my blacklist).
So I tell Decibel, entirely by the way, "We have to feed the cats, before we go to the horses."
My brilliant girl gives me one of her patented smiles and runs to the feed room (she doesn't go in, she knows better), and stretches from the doorway to poke the lidded bucket that contains the cat food.  How smart it that?
She really knows stuff like that.
I was in a much better mood for the rest of the chores, in spite of the 30 mph winds with 10°F (-12°C) temperatures, or complete lack thereof, really.