It had been a long day.

Malcolm Reynolds had been told, warned, in fact, that he needed to convert his wheeled wagon to a sleigh and use that for the winter. Apparently since the Alliance had taken over Shadow, the EPA had ordered a regulation for it and all snow baring planets that hover vehicles were prohibited during the winter time. Apparently the anti-gravity thrusters melted the snow when they idled too long, which was harmful to the environment (or something to the effect, Mal was tizzied that the government was telling him what to run). So, he had been in the barn all day, the wagon on a jack as he took the wheels off to replace them with the sleigh bars. He had checked the harnesses, the traces, the collars and made sure everything was in working order. Plus the drafts, Tao and Nui were in fine shape to do some sleigh pulling. Nui was in foal, a recent and good development, but she still had a ways to go before being unable to work. The only canundrum was who the father was, because both Tao and Donner had been friendly to her in the pasture.

Shortly after finishing up in the barn, tossing hay into the feeding troughs, leading Xin from the pasture to her stall, Mal bundled himself up and braced the snowstorm outside. Winter had pushed through but a few days from returning from their trip to the mountains. The clouds had rolled in, built up tall like a range of grey and white granite peaks. Wind howling, snow coming down in violent sheets of white for the span of nine days, snowing them in. Now, the flake fall was but a dusting, like powdered sugar on an already liberally frosted cake. Mal walked tentatively to the house, following the path Zoe and Tao had cleared with the harnessed snow plow. The way was slippery, but eventually after a few near misses he climbed the hollow steps to the porch, shook himself up and went inside.

It was there that he afforded himself the luxury of venting his opinion of the hovercraft regulation during dinner. Everyone had listened with a high degree of tolerance,