Full moon, clear skies, cold weather. Bitterly cold, like minus-25° Celcius bitterly cold (minus-38°C with the windchill)… far too cold for me to even think about trying to do the conversion to Fahrenheit for the benefit of our American friends.

Let’s just say it’s cold enough — if I may be so indelicate and unladylike (which I damn well may, because it’s that cold) — it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. So, naturally, I’ve spent the evening scoping the Interweb for a brass monkey — just to test the truth of the old adage. Lots of the cute and morally improving See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil monkey trio to be found… but none of them seem to be anatomically correct.

And then, and then, this!
Look, Ma — hat tip to our buddies at Weather Scoop — it’s a genuine Brass Monkey Freeze Indicator!

Made of gleaming solid brass, this monkey stands six inches tall and comes with the necessary physical equipment to test the winter weather.

How fast it works depends on how cold it is. If Part B is still attached to Part A, then the environment is probably not dangerously cold. But if Part B is detached from Part A then the environment is below 23 degrees Fahrenheit, which is cold enough to…

What, only 23°Fahrenheit?
Wait, that’s, umm, minus-5°C — a lovely spring day!
Well, make allowances: the brass monkey’s created in tropical Texas, not a tough Canadian primate at all.
(But I still want one.)

Yes, December is defnitely here.

There’s a winter storm warning on for, well, almost all of the country, according to Environment Canada… Just in the past hour, the snow has been moving in quickly here.

He Who Hogs The Power Tools scampered out earlier than planned to do the first-of-week errands in town, and I’ve had the dogs out for some exercise (for the prevention of cabin fever — they don’t much like going out in a storm, so we have our fun now).

Meanwhile, a large buck white-tailed deer just walked purposefully up through the orchard from the road, heading for the back field. He’ll hunker down in a sheltered bit of woods and, no doubt, hope that the coyotes are otherwise occupied…

I was slow to grab the camera, and you’ll see that these two through-the-window snapshots are astonishingly poor — but at least they’ll give you a glimpse of today’s wild visitor. (Click the thumbnails for a slightly bigger picture.)

In another hour or so, it’s going to be a winter wonderland out there, and I’m feeling the urge to start a little festive baking and candy-making. Truffles and brown sugar fudge and maybe some shortbread cookies?

It’s Canada; it’s December…
Let’s eat!