A Cold Alberta Morning – What Minus 20°C Looks Like

American: We get an awful lot of cold waves from Canada. Can’t we weatherstrip the border?
– Author Unknown –

In Canada, 0° C is the freezing point of water (and exposed skin). So what is -20° C like? If you live south of me, you may soon find out, because that is what the temperature is here this morning and when the wind picks up it will probably head your way!! (And that merits two exclamation marks.)  I, plucky Canadian that I am, braved the cold to take some pictures for you. Then I tracked down some quotations that will explain what winter means to me.

The bird bath and the solar lights – they are all starting to list as the frost heaves them one way or another.

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
– Carl Reiner –

Everything was coated with frost this morning and that was the only reason I went outside to take pictures!

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.
– Author Unknown –

If it hadn’t been so cold, I would have set up the tripod to take photos of these spruce needles.

Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.
– Plutarch, Moralia –

These are my tracks in the snow as I darted to and fro snapping photos. In any other circumstances, wouldn’t you say that  the maker of these tracks had had one drink too many!?