Lol, not quite -80C...but...I am forced to admit that I am thoroughly fed up with this winter. We have had a ridiculous stretch of weather, lasting a couple of months now. A few days of frigid temps...a brief warm-up (although still 10-15C colder than Esox's tropical delight) that is always accompanied by another 4-6 inches of snow...then right back down into arctic temps again. And almost always overlaid with the incessant prairie wind. This cycle has repeated over and over and it wears a person down.
This morning was the final straw. My dog Duke woke me up for his usual morning constitutional, and when I cracked the door to let him out he hesitated as the icy blast hit him in the face, looked up at me with resignation, and then bounded out into the blizzard. He forged his way through the snow that was over his back, heading for his favourite pooping corner, checking over his shoulder to make sure that I was waiting at the door to let him back in. I glanced over to his bathroom corner, and did a double-take. Last night's wind had been sculpting and moving the drifts, as usual; the latest snow has been very light and fluffy, easily moved...except where Duke had deposited a couple of brown surprises yesterday. As each fresh warm treat had hit the snow, it had melted partway down, disappearing beneath the surface but compacting the snow into ice as it went.
Now, I normally remove dog poops as soon as they are produced; I don't let them accumulate. But in winter, when it's -30C with a howling wind at midnight and I am standing at the door in my robe and slippers, well, that stuff can just sit for a bit. It's easier to pick up after it freezes anyway, or at least that's how I rationalize letting it sit. So, when I glanced over at Duke's Corner...there they were. Seven or eight rock-hard frozen turdcicles, each sitting atop a little column of ice, suspended several inches above the surrounding snow that the wind had blown away; a magical garden of fecal stalagmites . Duke was carefully going from one to the next, checking to make sure that each one was his and that no wild critters had invaded the sanctity of his yard. Satisfied, he quickly squatted, pinched off another loaf, and then bounded back to the door with a look of relief on his face.
So, yes, Esox...sorry...but your blistering near-freezing reading of 1C...
positive 1C, to boot!...coupled with a light frosting of snow that doesn't even cover the tops of your grass...just doesn't elicit even the slightest touch of sympathy from me. As soon as I finish my first morning coffee, I am suiting up to fill the bird-feeders, to carve a pathway through the fresh drifts between the house and the cars...and to fell those poop-towers for proper disposal.