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The reduced number of daylight hours starts to take its toll on people after a while. Humans were designed to be outdoors, soaking up the vitamins provided by the sunlight. At this time of year, with few daylight hours, we are sunlight deprived, which makes us lazy, bored, and grouchy. It comes to the point, it is easier to just give up, avoid the cold, and watch television. This will only make the problem worse. If the temperature is warmer than forty below zero, a person needs to get outside during the daylight hours, even if it is cold.

Saturday morning after breakfast, I suggested to my wife we go put out a couple trail cameras. She was apparently suffering from the same malaise caused by long winter nights and short daylight hours that has afflicted me. She thought putting on most of the clothes we own and going for a ride across the farm sounded like a great idea. She was to the point of being lazy and bored, like me, but fortunately, neither of us reached the grouchy stage. That is called cabin fever which is much more difficult to cure.

I knew where my warm clothes were since at one point of deer season or another I had worn most of them. I replaced memory cards and batteries in the camera while my wife looked for her extreme weather clothes. They were not as easy to find since we really did not have winter last year. A person does not need to get too serious about dressing when they are only going to town and the temperature is just below freezing. It is entirely different when we are going on the Mule with wind chills below zero. The breeze through the open cab cannot only chill a person to the bone, but frost bite exposed parts right off a body. If we were to experience mechanical difficulty a mile away from civilization, which is the only place it happens, the walk home could be dangerous.

Louie, the boxer, knew we were going to do something fun. Strangely enough, for a short haired dog that lives inside, he is always ready to go with us and do anything outside. The outside dogs thought it was great that we were coming to join them. They had not noticed it was cold.

The lake has been frozen over for some time. Geese still fly in, slide across the ice, and spend the night standing on one leg at a time on the ice. In the morning, they eat grass that peaks above the snow on the shore and fly off, I assume to get a drink of water. When my wife and I, along with three dogs, went across the dam, the geese all took flight. The dogs thought this was wonderful entertainment, and I must admit, that many geese taking off at the same time is an impressive sight.

One good thing about the snow is it is easy to see the trails left behind when the deer travel. We checked several trails and found a couple that had been used by large numbers of deer in the past twenty-four hours. I strapped the cameras to trees on different trails and we made a loop around the farm.

By the time we got back to the house, the dogs were beginning to slow down and feel the need to rest. Neither my wife nor I had frozen off anything important and best of all, we had gotten at least one day's quota of fresh air and sunshine. For a few days, we should not suffer from being lazy, bored, or grouchy.[[In-content Ad]]

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