Winter wonderland.

I love winter.  

I love how the woods are blanked in frosted crystal and how peaceful and quiet it is.

I love how when you wake up in middle of the night and its snowing the world is completely still and silent.

I love how the snow can make even the most mundane things look pretty.

I don't even mind the cold, it feels healthy and refreshing to me.

That's a good thing considering how often I'm outside in it.

The one thing I don't understand about winter is the way people dress. 

It's astonishing to me to go downtown on a 20° day and see folks in sneakers or ballet flats, wearing sweaters as coats and leggings that don't meet their sox. 

I am not being judgmental of peoples fashion here, I'm concerned for a real reason. 

When we go out to work we are out there for hours on end, we must dress properly!

I know what you are thinking. We live where we work, can't we just go in and get warm? Not necessarily.

We farm 150 acres, we drive four-wheelers to get to where we are working, sometimes tractors as well. 

What happens if we are in the back 40 and what we are driving breaks down or gets stuck? We walk! Do you know how long it takes to get frostbite if its 0° with a wind chill? About 30 minutes. 

How long would it take for us to walk home from that back side of our farm? 

About an hour on foot. That's not considering hypothermia or getting deadly chilled either. 

Most of the time we would not just leave the broken down or stuck wheels. We would walk back to get something else to drive and head back out to fix out the first problem.

So how does one survive this cold?

Easy, you dress correctly. 

Layers are a farmer's best friend.

I wear anywhere between 8 and 10 layers, this includes real warm sox, leggings under my jeans. A tank top then a long sleeve shirt a sweater, a flees jacket a down vest, then my Carhartt coat.

Always a hat and sometimes a buff and a scarf too. 

I see the young people dressed barely warm enough for 40° and I worry about there safety. It's crazy to go out in anything other than a winter cost and boots if its anywhere around 30°. 

What if the car breaks down? What if any number of emergencies happen. They will not handle it well. 

My grandfather always taught me to be prepared, Be ready for anything, the Weather can change without notice. 

You can come across an accident that you weren't expecting, a storm can come blow up that wasn't predicted, there's an endless number of unpredictable and unexpected things can happen. 

we've come across 

car accidents before and we had to help the people in the vehicle before the EMTs arrived. Life is unpredictable.

You just don't know, you must prepare yourself to be safe and take care of yourself. 

All young women go through a phase where they don't want to put a coat over there carefully thought about an outfit, I get it, I was 16 once too but my grandfather taught me a very important lesson.

 One day when I was getting ready to go out (I believe we were possibly going to cut down a Christmas tree on the mountain) I had worn platform sneakers, wide leg jeans and just a vest over my long sleeve shirt.

My grandfather protested the outfit. 

My family was not terribly argumentative, but we were disagreeing with the fact that what I was wearing was perfectly fine.

He did not think it was. "You are going to freeze." He informed me.

 I insisted that I would be completely fine and he gave up telling me that: "I would understand why he was so worried by the end of the day."

He let me leave the house like that and I'm very glad he did, I would never have learned the lesson otherwise.

By halfway, through the day I was freezing! 

I had not known that he had hidden an extra coat and blanket in the car so that I could warm up. 

He asked me on the way home if I understood now why he wanted me to dress better? 

I did, And from that day on I dressed properly for the weather.
My grandfather always wanted me to be prepared, he told me to never buy a pair of heels or shoes that I did not think I could run in because you just never know!

My grandfather was a smart man and he wanted me to take care of myself and be prepared for anything.

 Now that I'm grown I feel I can, I thank him for that.

My Grandmother had a different approach, "we paid for you to have that warm coat, your darn well-going wear it!" my grandparents were on a fixed income and I understood, even then, that everything they gave me was hard earned. I respected the effort, therefore, the item as well. 

 I understand a lot of peoples income has a lot to do with what they purchase, however this, in my opinion, is not an excuse. 

There are second-hand stores, there are donation places, there's help for low-income families, there are tag sales all throughout the season. 

My husband and I are not wealthy, yet we own several pairs of very warm good coats that we bought second-hand for very little, sometimes nothing.

So, please! Please! Learn to dress properly for the weather that you live in.

 I do not want to come across any of my readers Frozen on the sidewalk someday please heed my warning because if anybody knows about surviving out in the weather it's a farmer.