Hard frost and hiking

 

We've had several cold nights in a row, which makes me happy that we had gotten the carpet and carpet padding put in recently.  Just having that on the floors results in a +10 degree difference in the Irv, without changing the heat setting on the radiator.  Today, we spent most of this beautiful, dry, sunny day doing the last of the winterizing...putting plastic up on the final two (big) windows, dragging the studded tires out from under Irv so we can have them installed this week, and Steve rebuild the steps up to the porch.  Seca's been having a much harder time getting up - getting up from laying down, but also getting up the steps and she hesitates a lot on the steps.  I think it's her hips that are the worst - sometimes she's very weak and can't get her back end up.  So we're going to take her in to see if there's anything that will help. 

On Saturday Steve had to work, so I went for a long hike with Emily, a friend from school who's been our hiking companion before.  We did the Perseverance trail because it was sunny out and with all the fresh snow on the mountains, we figured it would be pretty.  It was.  Because the trail's in a deep valley and we left about 9 am, we didn't get direct sun in the valley for any of the hike.  That meant that the frosty leaves and moss stuck around for the whole trip.  It was very pretty, but cold!  I had a bunch of layers with me and as long as we kept moving we were fine, but it was only in the 20s in the valley.  Brrrr!