PRAIRIE WINTER

As this is our first winter in Saskatchewan we're having some adjustments to it. For instance, the sun doesn't come up till nearly 8:30 a.m. Today, it was -18 degrees with a windchill of -33C. If we were still in Ontario, this would've been called a "snow day" and I'd have had the kids under my feet all day. They don't let the kids stand out at bus stops in this kind of cold, and the bus companies won't run their buses for fear they'll damage their engines. Ha!

Here on the Prairies, you drive your kids to the bus stop (okay, I was the only mom to do so, because I'm a suck) in the dark, and wait in a warm truck till the bus comes. Most of the teen boys had no boots or hats on, even with the wind blowing that -33 degrees around. The kids were standing in the bus shelter, although a few stood outside to line up to be the first on the bus. As soon as it rounded the street corner, my two kids jumped out of the truck and raced over the snow bank to get in line.

A friend told me that the schools out here only close in winter if it's a) -40 degrees or b) if it's blowing snow over the highway so it's a white-out, or it's a howling blizzard. Last winter the kids only had 2 "snow days". No wonder the pioneers on the Prairies were such hardy stock. They had to be! I can't imagine surviving these temperatures in a sod shack, no better than a lean-to, with my cow in the living room.

Take that - you teenage posers for "Canadian Idiot" by Weird Al Yankovic! :) He's obviously never felt REAL cold before! (and we have elk up here as well as moose, Al, just so you know...)