Bare Naked

            Did you ever have one of those dreams where you are naked and exposed?  Well I’ve been feeling exposed like that all week.

            I’ve been working an interim job all fall up in northeastern Montana at Glasgow.  It was still summer when I first drove up, and I took my wife’s older Buick.  The weather has been unusually warm and dry all fall – until this last week.

            My best horses wear shoes with toe and heel calks most of the year, and those calks are built up with a welded bead of hard-surface. For at least 6 months out of the year, those shoes are set over top of rim pads, to keep snow from balling up under the shoes -  Winter Shoes.

          And about the same time of year that my horses get their winter shoes, I outfit my pickup for winter as well: scoop shovel, tire chains, tow rope, jumper cables, and extra clothes enough to stand any kind of weather.

            But last week it snowed in Glasgow.  I was a long way from home; I was driving a car; I had no shovel, chains, or extra clothes; and I just felt naked.  

            I drove the Buick 300 miles home for the holidays, and I felt like a damn fool or newcomer - knowing that if I hit a patch of ice and went into the ditch I wasn’t adequately dressed to be out in the cold, and had no way to extricate myself.  I was nearly helpless.

            It’s time to gear up for the winter so that I am able to take care of myself – and able to offer assistance to anyone else who finds themself overcome by the winter weather.