Even for those who like us have grown up and spent their lives in this northern climate, the weather we're now experiencing is exceptionally brutal, and we feel it. Part of that is because it is, of course, the now-prevailing temperature seems a little out of the ordinary in the intensity of the cold, exacerbated by a whipping wind, and part of it is the fact that we're no longer young. Yesterday was extremely miserable. I did read that people on beta blockers are more susceptible to the cold.

I've taken to pulling on ear warmers and using the hood of my winter jackets even when we're just out to do some local shopping. Yesterday we dropped by the library, then went into a few shops, and of course where these places are located there are large open places where the effect of the wind is even more injurious to one's sense of comfort. The icy cold creeps through thanks to the wind, wheedling itself into whatever layers of garments you're certain will keep you cold, and don't with exposure to the reality of the weather of this type.

We're gratified to see the squirrels and birds continuing to regularly take advantage of the seeds and nuts my husband is so careful to clean up and replenish more often than he really must. There's a regular coterie of squirrels; red, black and grey, and we believe some of them come over from the ravine to fuel up daily.

We're getting downy and hairy woodpeckers to the hanging suet, and bluejays, cardinals, juncoes, chickadees and mourning doves regularly make their daily appearance. For some reason the cardinals often appear as dusk begins to fall, though they also come along throughout the day.

The mourning doves this morning, at minus-25-degrees (with the temperature to rise gradually throughout the day), seem to like to rest on the porch, close to where we have an extended tray full of seeds and nuts, fluffing their feathers around their feet, head lowered into their wings, dozing.

We're getting daily dustings of snow requiring that the snow be gently removed from the feeding platforms. My husband took out a ladder two days ago to break the ice and packed snow off the high bird feeder and the squirrel-cone below it to enable the seeds to fall through as they should.

When the seeds scattered below had been covered with snow he noticed that the juncoes which are ground feeders flew up to the cone and sat there, also on the top of the bird feeder but seemed unable to figure out how to access the seeds even as chickadees kept flitting from the trees to the feeder, picking at the seed.