Steps and footsteps.

It's been so cold here in the Hudson Valley that it's bringing out my inner Carson:

How cold is it?

It's so cold I saw Charlie Rose in a parka describing his weenie to some interns. 

Some parts of the east coast have really been suffering. We've had windchills to 16 below, but that's merely fatal. In New Hampshire, especially the famously deadly Mount Washington, they've had cold that will not just make you merely dead, but really most sincerely dead. Minus 36 with a windchill of minus 94, said the Boston Globe, which put it colder than the surface of Mars. Which, you'll note, is almost 50 million miles farther from the sun than we are.

There has definitely been something a little otherworldly in this frigid outdoors, especially when the dogs have to go out first thing in the pre-dawn hours. The snow we got was like a fine powder, like the diamond dust from the Antarctic, and it has resulted in some weird phenomena such as... the inside-out footprint.

One small schlep for a man, one giant schlep for mankind.

Amusing Planet calls these raised footprints, and says that "In extremely cold places, such as in Antarctica or in high altitudes, sometimes you get to see a peculiar phenomenon – footprints that are raised rather than depressed in the snow. What actually happens is when you step in the snow, the snow gets compressed and hardens, and then the wind blows the loose snow away leaving the once sunken footprints standing hard and proud on the surface." They also say that these prints require such extreme weather that you won't see this in your backyard "unless you live in McMurdo," a US Antarctic base.

Well, smart guy writer from Amusing Planet, what do you call those lumps from my footsteps? Snow tumors? I walked there on Saturday and had raised lumps Sunday. On the left of the photo you see the normal sunken footprints I had just made. In other parts of the yard were strings of raised doggie footprints.

It really was a scene from an alien planet, except for the dog pee. (The guys can write their names in the snow --- but they are illiterate, so it's kind of like an X.)

Normally after we've had a snow we also have ice issues, either as part of the storm or in following days as snow melts and then refreezes at night. Since we got this snow last week nothing has melted, though, because we haven't come within 32 country miles of 32 degrees F. But that tiny-crystal snow itself is very slick, so caution has been required since it fell.

Out come the mats!

Better safe than pretty.

These handy rubber treads weigh a ton and keep us from falling down the porch steps. Been there, fell on that. These are too heavy to blow away and keep me from going down like a sack of hammers, even when little (100-pound) dog is hauling at the leash.

The last week was tough with the arctic chill, but this morning when I took out the dogs it was 19 with no wind. Felt like a day at the beach.

So keep hope alive! After all, it's always darkest before...

(That said, there is one advantage of extreme cold over extreme heat. In extreme cold I tend to focus on the part of me that is most uncomfortable at any one time -- nose being nipped? fingers in agony? feet dying? In the extreme heat I just feel miserable all over.)