Brrrrr......!!

And it's only 11 below here, at the moment. With no wind. And it was even sunny, until less than an hour ago, when the sun set on twenty ten.

And actually, must confess, that photo was from yesterday. Today's wouldn't have had the fog hanging on the peaks, but I was pitching hay and gathering eggs, unlike yesterday when I was more in photo mode, partly because of the view in the other direction, a few minutes later...

So remind me again, what are sun dogs supposed to mean?

I'd think under these conditions, most ancients would have assumed the worst, but I'm not so sure. In fact, I don't really expect any sympathy at all, particularly from folks up in Napi's Country, where it truly has been brutal! Yet again... In fact I recall mentioning Havre under similar circumstances in prior Telegraphs but gads...

They've got 18" or so of snow (wind renders yet another statistic meaningless, though), plus frightful temperatures, and did I already mention wind...?

So no, it really hasn't been that bad here.

I even had friends who got stuck on a plane in Florida at 20 degrees, with icicles hanging off the wings (where they don't ordinarily keep de-icer on hand, and it got even colder when the sun finally came up!). But when you go sub-zero, and throw snow and wind into the equation, it gets brutal. As many Hi-Liners can once again attest.

I recently re-read parts of Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean, and mercy...

Of all her stories about growing up in the Breaks, and later marrying a neighboring rancher, some of the most horrifying to me at least, were about blizzards.

We somehow dodged the bullet yet again, although not by much. I-15 was closed south of Dillon yesterday, with zero visibility and chill factors at fatal levels. Plus up on the Hi-Line, and out in the Breaks, and good grief...

Almost everywhere it seems, it's been worse than here. So once again, complaining here in the Valley of the Flowers remains almost useless!

So we'll skip that. Besides, the end of yet another year is upon us, and rather than a review, I far prefer the prediction theme we've managed to maintain for a few years now.

Luckily this isn't just a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-the-pants kind of prediction, though. Not that I've never done those...!

No, oddly enough, seems like there's been a vastly disproportionate amount of bookwork around here lately, including doing detailed financial projections, five years out, for BiOmega3.

This was time well spent, and although you'll seldom hear me say so (when it comes to bookwork) was actually kind of fun. In fact we were working with an Excel template for profit/loss/balance sheet projections, developed right up the road in Helena, that automatically does the math as you enter the numbers. Which makes it way easier to get the "big picture", or at least see what effect different factors have on it.

This is of importance around here right now, as we're not only greeting the New Year, but yet another transition. We'd somewhat arbitrarily picked tomorrow as the day we we "officially" transition from Cowboy Heaven Consulting to Biomega3. Except I think it's going to take me a while to get used to answering the phone differently, and it's even been suggested (by folks who should know) that I tape a note to it.

The Cowboy Heaven site isn't going away, but it had morphed into about 95% buffalo stuff, over the years. Which abruptly went away, back during March Madness. So we'll put ads on the articles (like most did years ago) and see what happens...

Again, complaining is all but useless, though, and so maybe this is meant to be...

Oddly enough, one thing that struck me today, as I was finally wrapping up these heinous amounts of recent bookwork, was that our projected gross income for BiOmega3 for next year, is almost exactly what the income for the Cowboy Heaven/Buffalo Bill's thing was last year. Hmmm....

Except the BiOmega3 income grows near-dramatically after that, and things pencil kinda nicely almost from the start, whereas there was no way we were going to suddenly triple or ten-tuple the number of buffalo we were skinning. Gads, I hate to think... That almost would justify complaints!!

So no, for a change (barring bookwork) the Holidays have not been just unmitigated pandemonium around here, possibly a first! It's a time for reflection, but projection also.

Happy New Year!