Jan 29, 1905

Today is Sunday and I drove to Church by myself. I am independant now that I have a team of my own. It has been a nice day, not too cold, about zero. The cold does not affect me so much. It does not paralyse me as you say. Sometimes I feel as if my body was 40 below zero but not so often. When you are between the nice clean sheets in a warm bed, think of your baby boy away in the Wild West sleeping in a tent and the temperature 38 or 40 below and the fire out. One wakes in the night, your pillow...that is perhaps your coat, frozen like a rock and the clothes frozen on you. I tell you it's a kind of funny experience. But I have had a taste of all that. When one goes for a ride one's coat is all white with one's breath frozen on it. That is not so bad as when one has a moustache and it is all icicles.

Yes I am quite decided that this is the place for me. I do no care what they say about farming. It is the game for me. There may be some hard work and hardships but what of that, you are your own boss. If you are sick or it is too cold to go out, well you can step inside, but if you are working in the town you hve to go out or else get the bounce. And what's more you can make enough in the summer to 'lay up' as the saying is in the winter. There is no life like the farmer, out in all weather and lots of excitement. You never know whether you are standing on your head or heels and sometimes on neither. About the food, I can hardly tell you all I get because I don't know. I eat what I am given and am glad to get it but I know this, that it is good. It may be plain but good beef, pork, potatoes, bread and tea, etc. What more can I say.