Bitter Cold

It got bitterly cold overnight. I went out for a trot this morning, warmly dresses and blowing steam from my nostrils. The air was still and the deep blanket of snow muffled my hoofsteps. I plodded through hock-deep snow drifts in a field, drawn by sharp retorts coming from the woods on the other side. As I got closer, the sound became clearer. The trees were making snaps and bangs as the sap under the bark froze, expanded, and made the wood crack. It was really cold. After a few minutes of listening to the random bangs, I had to turn around and head back to my warm fire in my tree-shaped stone stable, disturbing the pristine white blanket as I went. Below the snow, protected from the bitter cold, mice went about their business in the relative warmth of the subnivean crawl space.