38 Degrees Below Zero

The title says it all, we hit –38 F overnight with windchill taking it down another ten degrees below the base temperature. I thought thirty below the night before was bad enough, but this was impressive – however it still was topped by 1996 when our property crossed the forty below line.

Our new used 2006 Subaru Outback refused to start yesterday until some hours of having a space heater in the engine compartment took effect in the late afternoon. The car ran well for a short jaunt to check on a neighbor but a puddle of transmission or power steering fluid was apparent when we parked again. I’m hoping that it is simply shrunken seals due to the cold, but a mechanic will have to check it out once the thaw comes.

We’ve kept ahead of the cold and done fine with the only casualty being the plastic grill over the speaker in the driver’s side door. A tap with a booted foot instantly cracked the frozen plastic. Frustrating since we’ve only had the car for just over a week.

Final thought: Modern thermal longjohns are the best invention since sliced bread.

Winter Mornings

 

It is a marvel how much clear skies and a morning sun transform the dullness of winter into something spectacular. Two mornings ago was such a day, so I tried to photograph the beautiful frosting on the trees around the property. Sadly, they photos were blurry messes thanks to me having a subpar day which even the autostabilization on the Fujifilm HS25EXR couldn’t overcome.

Second chances are far rarer than people would like to admit, especially when trying to capture a moment in time. Thankfully, today gave me such an opportunity.

Winter Woes

This has been an unusually cold winter with days of snow falling nearly as excessive. Thankfully the latter have not resulted in very deep snow, but the wear and tear of the season is getting to be a bit much. At the time of writing it is –16F outside and 65F inside the house.

Thanks to not checking the LP gas levels, we are out and the water pipes are all frozen. It’s simply too soon to have run out of gas under normal circumstances and this demonstrates how ridiculously cold it has been. Now we wait for a snowplow to first come in and then we can get more LP.

The good news is it is supposed to get up to 20F today.  Eventually we will have water again.

A combination of cold and moisture has made the season unbearable at night for my father and me. Since it is the perfect weather to make joints ache, we’ve had a difficult time getting restful sleep.

This is a small concern given what else is going on.

After losing far too much weight in the past few months since his auto rollover, my father finally went in for tests last Wednesday. They found a large ulcerous tumor and we just got the results of the biopsies this morning. It’s cancer of a lymphoma type and chemotherapy is going to be required rather than surgery.

All we can do is deal with the situation as it unfolds.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

UPDATED: We have water again as of late last night. It turns out the wind blew out one of the small windows in the basement! Old farmhouses sometimes had windows to let in light that are about a quarter of the size of normal windows. Just one blown back into the basement was enough to turn it into a deep freeze.

Original post:

All sorts of warnings have been given about how bad today would get and I was too ill the second half of yesterday to remember to fill containers with water. That mistake came home to bite me on the behind, of course. While I was at church, the water froze and none of the tricks that normally get it going again in subzero weather worked for my father.

While the raw temperature at the house was only –4 F (-20 C), wind chill was closer to –18 F (-28 C). The blowing wind is the culprit behind the frozen pipes and it will be days before things get better. Overnight forecasts indicate around the wind chill temperature for the high tomorrow!  Add in wind and we’ll see –50 F (-46 C). Blowing snow will be the insult added to injury.

As a result of the preparation fiasco of this autumn, the 50 gallon water drum was never filled and thanks to yesterday, no other containers were. There are few things more annoying than breaking the Sabbath to me, but it turned into an emergency when no empty gallon jugs were to be found. At some time they were thrown away to my ire. So a trip to the local grocery netted four gallons of water for drinking purposes to last the next couple of days.

As far as the toilet goes, I’m melting snow in buckets for that purpose. At least I don’t have to use an outhouse! I don’t even want to imagine what that would be like.

Survival and Pants

Looking out the window, it appears the world did not end the other day. While I see a fair amount of snow, there is no where near the amount that was forecast for the winter storm two days ago. There have been no sightings of giant wolves or of an immense serpent, so Ragnarok hasn’t happened either.

I have always wondered what people who are terrified and panicked by end of the world theories/rumors do the day after it doesn’t end. All those plans put off, belongings given or sold to others, and bills unpaid have to be a big a slap to the face as the failure of the planet to go up in flames. How about facing friends and neighbors?

So life goes on, the wheel in the sky keeps turning, death and taxes still can’t be avoided, and there still isn’t much on TV worth watching.

We hit –4 F last night and it really feels like winter now. Trudging up the driveway to catch a ride yesterday was a cold endeavor, but I handle it better than I used to. Between the weights and the meditation methods, my body has decided it can circulate the blood after all. Yesterday was fun going out with friends to browse movies and pistols, then playing D&D. I didn’t get to do anything other than a small amount of role play during the session, which was good because I wasn’t feeling too well anyway.

Today is a bit tougher and I’m trying to work myself up to weight training and getting one last movie review written for the year. The collapse in blog traffic still isn’t explained and this is the lowest it has been in years. Google probably demoted me in searches for some arbitrary reason. All of that is automated through algorithms and is highly impersonal. It won’t stop me from posting as I have anymore than the increasing traffic had changed my habits.

Yesterday did have some bad moments, though. Two pairs of pants, one only a couple of months old, tore in the crotch. So there went the money I was saving for a big purchase early next year. I could only afford to replace the jeans and will try to figure out if I can somehow mend the khakis since they are so new.

Pants have been an illustration of why inflation has been bad for some time. The fabric used in pants has gotten thinner and thinner with the stitching actually ripping through it in some cases. Formerly good brands like Wrangler and Levi have become low quality and I don’t know if any good quality jeans are out there these days. It’s hard for me to view pants as disposable when I’m paying $20-25.

So if you are hoarding for disaster, you better buy a lot of jeans in order to survive, since they will fall apart under duress more than they used to. I wonder if I can duct tape the khakis…

Reality Is Stranger than Fiction

Global warming has gotten so bad that iguanas are falling out of trees from the heat in Florida. Oh wait, they are freezing from the record cold there.  My mistake.

The next link may not be reality, since it is only theory, but it qualifies as stranger than fiction.  The theory postulates that 8 percent of our DNA was inserted by animal viruses and furthermore they may cause schizophrenia!

I always though insanity was hereditary, but I thought you caught it from your kids, not your pets.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow

After all, it isn’t like we can stop it.

Life in Minnesota involves the occasional blizzard or two and we’re in the middle of one right now.  Most places in the area have gotten between 10 and 16 inches already and it is still coming down as I post this.

The Post Bulletin is predicting it will end up in the top ten blizzards in Rochester history. 18 inches is looking likely for Winona, Rochester, and North of La Crosse.  I have the feeling I’ll be canceling the Missionary Coordination Meeting at church scheduled for tonight.

The wind is adding insult to injury.  Wind chills and blowing snow take much of the fun out of a blizzard.  Tonight temperatures will drop below zero in the AM meaning 20 to 30 below wind chills.  I hope that everyone stays safe and warm during nature’s siege.