Cold.

I’ll be heading to the river soon. I told Oton to wait for me instead of heading out early. I would hate for them to get hit by a car. Besides it’s incredibly cold out there. All of which makes me wonder, just how do they survive weather like this?

This is the kind of cold where the snow literally squeaks beneath my boots. Even the dogs didn’t want to stay out very long this morning.

I worry about everything that lives outside this time of year. Just this morning I woke up and tossed a scoopful of mealworms on the ground for the flocks of finches, juncos, and sparrows. I see a pair of cardinals nearly every day, and, I occasionally get visits from flickers and nuthatches, but it is the finches who “own” my feeder. I’m careful to fill the feeder with high energy food including lots of sunflower seeds, nuts and safflower seeds. Look, I feel responsible for my tiny feathered friends. After all I taught them to depend on my feeder in better times.

But I digress; this is about my troll friends. How do they stay warm in temperatures like this? I mean they have been bare-footed every time I’ve seen them.  I’ll have to ask.