This is a purposeful winter, announcing itself with authority, unrelenting, an old-fashioned kind of a winter, the kind the old farmers always talk about, the way it used to be from November through March. It is too much for the hardy donkeys, who struggle with the ice and the cold, and who need to come in for the night to warm up, dry off, and be brushed and cosseted with grain and some corn. Lulu and Fanny come rushing in at night, and they will be in for most of this very cold weekend.