It has been a cold winter.

The folks at the Nature Conservancy's Zapata Ranch wrote in their blog that the temperature had not risen above 32 since before Thanksgiving. They were having to bring the young and weak cattle, horse, and buffalo into the barns at night. Understandably, they didn't seem comfortable having other species right next to them in such close quarters.

And it seemed that nights were consistently below zero. So, last week they gave up and moved all their livestock to Kansas.

Well, this week things have warmed up. On many days it has gotten above 40 up here in the mountain.

That has made it real nice to be outside.
But it has it's own bad side effects:

It is hard to slide you skis with ice caked on the bottom.

And snowshoeing is not much easier.

Tomorrow we'll try the old fashioned lace snowshoes, 

and see if that's any better.