Warm (Sort of) Below Zero

The week approaching Winter Solstice has been clear and cold.  Today, it is minus 15 degrees F.  Hoar frost (from ice fog) coats the bottom thirty feet of forest that spikes through 6.5 ft of sugary snow. The spruce boughs droop white. I see no animal tracks at all.  Everyone and everything is hunkered down on these short days of blue light at 9 am and sunset at 3 pm.

Hoar frost coats the branches

Outdoors, we do our jobs as quickly as thick mittens and bulky parkas allow.  When I light the fire for the hot tub, (yes, we bathe outside at these temperatures), I notice an inversion layer of cold air that presses the smoke to flow horizontally out of the chimney.  To the chickens, I carry warm water and snacks of meat fat or seedy berry pulp. I kick a hole in a frozen layer of the chicken water, pouring warm water in the allegedly heated bowl.  Their coop is insulated, with a thick carpet of straw, but their body heat and a light bulb are not enough to keep their eggs from freezing, which I boil and feed back to them. 

Down to about zero, we walk on the frozen lake, playing fetch with the dog, who skitters and slides on icy patches.  Below that temperature, a stroll or a brisk walk is less appealing to all of us.  Buddy lifts alternate back legs off the cold snow, but I have not yet succeeded in getting him to accept four fabric and Velcro booties.   

Our machines suffer, too.  The solar batteries are nowhere near as efficient in winter as summer, so we awaken to a loss of power every morning (if there is no wind for the wind turbine).  In the cold and dark, Bryan trudges uphill to the power shed, dragging a sled with the ever-reliable Honda generator that he warmed in the cabin overnight. Plugged in for about four hours (one gallon of gas), we eke out another 20 hours of electricity.

Inside the 750 sq ft cabin, the wood stove burns 30-45 logs per day, 24/7.  The 23 gallon aluminum hot water tank above the stove radiates some heat into the room, but we still need to wear several layers of clothes inside.  The double layered windows need additional insulation, so we hang blankets over rebar, tucking them behind the drapes during the day.  However, the chilliest corners of the log cabin measure 29 degrees today. Olive oil has congealed on a shelf.  The warmest center of the cabin, though, is a pleasant 60 - 63.

Summer view of our woodstove

The drain under the kitchen sink freezes, so every morning, we plug in an electric line that dangles inside the pipe to warm it.  On exceptionally cold days, when the drain line requires more power than we want to allocate, I wash dishes in a bucket and dump the gray water outside.  Outside, the well pump can freeze, too.  On those days, we bring in buckets of snow to melt for wash water. 

Challenging though this weather can be, it does offer compensatory benefits. 

We save up indoor projects and pleasures for this time of year. This morning I cuddled in bed with an Agatha Christie novel.  Previously, I finished two online courses on dog training and another on making herbal remedies.  Herbal leaves, berries, and flowers that I harvested and dried during the summer are turned into salves, balms, and tinctures now.   The chocolate brandy made in prior summers my husband likes to sip, warm, on cold winter evenings.  I favor mint tea with rosehips.

Some people may get cabin fever.  I figure it is my job to make sure that I don’t.

Our Dog Learns to Haul Firewood

Learning to haul firewood

On October 25, we awoke to a silent, frozen lake.  No water lapping at the shore, no ducks tempting our dog.  Ten noisy flocks of geese (50 -100 birds each) flapped southward on that day alone.  They knew it was high time to head out.  How far do they fly in a day? Where do they find water -perhaps rivers - which freeze later?   Given our weather, I was astonished to see a float plane fly north several days later when I outside was in the wood fired hot tub, and wondered, “Where the heck is he going?” NORTH????  It had to be a river.   

The day after the lake froze, our chocolate lab, Buddy, ventured down to the dock and tentatively punctured the thin ice with his paw, to explore it.  Perhaps he saw his reflection, like Narcissus.  He bent down to sniff the transparent surface and then lapped up some water from the hole.  He repeated this a few feet to the right, as though to confirm his initial experience. 

Two days later, he trotted out 30 foot ellipses on the thickening ice. I was a bit nervous that he might break through, but he was fine.  His toenails sounded EXACTLY like a woman in high heels traversing a marble floor!  All of a sudden, he spied a coyote along shore.  He tried to run but slipped and slid like the three stooges, during which time the animal ran off into the woods. During these initial days when the ice thickens, it makes eerie booms, shots, and groans. The dog is nonplussed by these sounds.

On shore, he trots, leaps and runs through the snow.  Early November storms raised the snow depth to 19 inches (chest high for him, knee high for me) and then deeper and deeper.  He plows through, digging with his whole head thrust into the snow, after which he shakes his head clear and sneezes.  On our walks among our buildings, Bryan and I point out tracks of hare and voles (meadow mice) which he explores, squeezing under decks and outbuildings when he smells a critter or two, who remain safely out of reach. 

Excitedly approaching Bryan

Given his enjoyment of the cold, his need for exercise, and his enthusiasm for “helping” us, I trained him to haul sled loads of logs about 60 feet from the wood corral to the back porch.  First I had to get him familiar with a chest harness, which, of course, he wanted to chew.  Then, I had to figure out the length of the sled rope so that when he turned around in curiosity, he wouldn’t get tangled up and flip the sled.  Finally, I had to add enough log weight that the sled would not bang into his back legs when he stopped.  As you may imagine, this required several practice sessions and lots of peanuts and praise.  On our fifth try, we had a kinda-sorta success, and on our third day, he successfully hauled (with more enthusiasm and less confusion) three sled loads of 8 or 9 logs each while I hauled a larger sled ahead of him.  A week later now, he gets excited when we start to load a sled with logs for him. We discovered that he was just as willing to haul without the harness, by simply picking up the rope in his mouth and pulling backwards.  After he chewed through the rope several times, we threaded a long wire through two holes in the sled, and attached a smaller rope to that, which the dog puts in his mouth.  This worked well.  Twice this week, he even hauled a generator downhill with Bryan, from the power shed to the cabin, a 400 ft distance.  This enthusiasm will come in handy for these rather tedious winter tasks, especially as we age (ahead of him). 

When we cut trees in the woods in March, Buddy will help too.  After Bryan limbs and bucks the tree into logs, Buddy and I will transport loads in the same plastic sleds he hauls now.  I will load two sleds with logs and our 6 legs will move them from where the tree fell to our 11 foot sled/ snowmachine on a hard packed trail nearby.  I bet he will love to run behind me as I navigate home to drop thick logs by the wood corral and thin ones by the hot tub.  I look forward to more inter-species teamwork.   

 His outdoor enthusiasm motivates me to enjoy more aspects of the long winter season, too.