I think the key to surviving winter in Minnesota is getting out and rubbing your nose in it, just like a big old stinky dog, rolling around and revelling in it – rawrrrrrr! That said, I have not been good at being a big old stinky dog this winter. No, I’ve mostly stayed inside like some kind of fat, white Persian cat with big brown eye goobers and, as the weeks of eyeball-freezing cold have marched on like our own personal glacial age, I’ve just griped. Yowled. This is not good coping. The Catch-22 is that it’s so hard to get out the door when it’s like the south col of Everest in a storm, and yet getting out there is exactly what you need to do to stop being a miserable gripe-o-maton. Then, once you get in the middle of it, you see what a beautiful place winter can be.
Today it was 37. I went out for a little run around Calhoun. It was misty and white and lovely, the lake frozen and covered with snow, the snow soft and wet from the relative warmth. One of the beautiful things about Minnesota is that when it starts to get above freezing and there’s still a good snowpack, the snow evaporates and makes thick fog and hoarfrost on all the branches. It’s magical.
