South Dakota winter landscape.

The painfully cold, below zero daytime temperatures, are dragging on and on.  The daylight is lasting a bit longer which helps my spirits some, but it is just too darn cold.

I've kind of lost my zeal for...most everything that involves getting out of bed and stepping into the ice box of a world. 

I think my big mistake was taking a few days off from wearing long johns.  (Yes indeed, I wear up to three layers most days.)  And when I was doing that the cold did not seem so bad.  But it is February.  Surely the long johns aren't quite as necessary right?  Haha.  Wrong.

And while I'm going to go back to wearing many layers tomorrow, I fear the cold has seeped into my bones and it's just too late.

Probably I'll be fine.

Despite the cold and the low level of enthusiasm, I went out photographing this weekend.  We had lots of sun and the sun was nice.  But we also had wind and about two minutes into photographing at my first stop my hands hurt with cold.

I stuck it out for about an hour.  (DPChallenge has a challenge going with the topic of 'Minimalist Landscape' and if South Dakota isn't perfect for that challenge I don't know what is.)

Now I wasn't particularly successful in getting a great shot - but I gave it a go.  And with the help of photoshop I liked this end result:

Other shots from my excursion: 

See on despite your chattering teeth,
Julee