This morning I watched my son, who thinks he has antifreeze flowing through his veins, wander out into a landscape that resembled the dark side of the moon.

He finally deigned to do me the favor of wearing his puffy jacket and mitts, at least until he boarded his yellow school-bound rocketship with the frosty windows.

We are in the midst of killer cold, but here in Minnesota, we keep going. My husband snow-blows the driveway, so we can get the car out of the garage, and the sidewalks, so he can trudge them to work. My son assists with the shovel.

Husband also climbs on the roof to shove off heavy mounds of snow … a substantial amount of it landing in the basement window wells. He climbs down off the roof to shovel out the window wells. Thankless jobs, really, but ones we hope will stave off potential disasters … a collapsed or damaged roof, a foiled emergency exit. Our house sits like a cake decoration in a pile of meringue.

I’ve been making soup and other random dishes out of our eaten-down stores, begging off any type of outdoor work or errand-running. Conveniently(?), I have a cold.

But after yesterday’s snow removal effort, I was unceremoniously put back on dog-walking duty. Someone had, understandably, had enough.

Last night, I bundled up and walked Leo, in his usual fur coat, nothing extra, around the neighborhood. He seemed relieved to get out. I was not. I came home feeling miserable.

This morning, it was time to do it again. For research purposes, I documented my bundling, determined to do it better.

Welcome to our back door. This is real life:

How was the walk? Fantastic! We were out for about twenty minutes, mostly on shoveled sidewalks, but we also blazed through some snowdrifts — Leo’s favorite part.

In all honesty, I probably could have skipped the knit hat — I was almost too warm in the head region. The only part of me that got cold today was my left hand, which I had to take out of its mitt to bag the little bomb Leo left in a neighbor’s yard. I read that bare skin in weather like this can get frostbitten within 10 minutes. I’d say it could take a lot less. Brrr.

Stay warm and well, everyone!