Bitter Cold

In Tennessee last night, it got down to -4 degrees. Yesterday, the high was 14. Today it was 21. The animals hung in there pretty well.

Corn the Rooster patrolling the coop and keeping his girls safe. They huddled together
underneath the coop for the better part of the day.

Samson the Donkey had a few clumps of clay frozen to his hooves.
His water bucket froze and cracked, and then his second water bucket froze and cracked
even worse. I ended up giving him his first bucket, half-filled this morning.

The sheep barely noticed the cold. Their hair looks a bit thicker, but otherwise they've
acted normally. Par for the course for a breed developed in Maine, I guess.

 I find it incredible how durable these animals are. They survived outside, all night and day, in cold that would kill a human in a few hours without some serious warming equipment.

Just a passing thought - if Darwinian survival of the fittest is actually true, then how could humans have developed into such weak, vulnerable, weather-intolerable creatures? It makes no sense to me. What does make sense is that God designed us to be dependent creatures - dependent on our mothers as infants, our families for growth and development, our communities for life-sustaining things like shelter, clothing, and food, and ultimately dependent on God Himself for everything.

O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. -Daniel 3:67