December 27, 2003
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Think about this…
The inside of your refrigerator is probably warmer than my living room right now. The indoor thermometer is reading 37°F. The outdoor temp today is headed upward from an overnight low of -20°F. It was around seventeen below, last time I looked.
*smiles* Last night, around midnight, I watched Greyfox reach for the porch light switch and start to look out at the thermometer, then shake his head and turn away. He didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to look at the indoor temp today, either, but it was more than idle curiosity. I have tropical houseplants in here. Some of them might survive a light frost but my begonias would turn black immediately, and give up, if they froze.
Not that there was much I could do, besides put plastic bags over the plants, move their hangers closer to the woodstove, or move the electric heater that’s now warming my knees and fingers here at the computer desk over to their east- and south-facing windows. The temp drop in here is temporary anyway. Greyfox and I had brought it up from 34°F to 42°F after we got out of bed this morning, but then I sent Doug out to the woodpile for an armload of faster-burning small splits, and the two openings of the door brought it back down.
As I was crouching in front of the open woodstove a few minutes ago, for an insane moment I felt a touch of nostalgia for the old place across the highway. The thought was specific: at least over there we had the “nest”, where there was room for three people and a varying number of cats. That’s the small loft in the “mudroom” wannigan (that’s why I have that dictionary link in the left module on my main page). It is the same size, exactly, as the twin-size futon it used to support, which is now Doug’s bed here. It was my bed from 1984 until we moved here in ’98. Under it was Doug’s library and desk, and beside it was the woodstove at floor level and a stovepipe that radiated heat all the way to the roof.
That wannigan structure, built of scrap lumber and old real estate signs salvaged from dumps and ditches, and moved to the valley on a trailer from Anchorage when we relocated in ’83, had an almost-flat roof when we moved it here. Later, in the nineties after Greyfox moved to Alaska, we added a snow-shedding pitched metal roof, and left the sides open. That allowed the feral cats to get in there and huddle around the warm stovepipe. Even now that there’s no heat coming out of it, new litters of kittens are still being born up there.
That stupid thought about the virtues and advantages of the old nest was occasioned by my difficulty in getting Doug up off the sofa by the woodstove so I could stretch out there under the covers and play the PS2. He’s still there, which is largely why I’m here blogging and not over there in Disgaea. [Temp update: Greyfox just called out that it's up to 39°F over in his corner of the living room where the thermometer is--then he got up and came over here to read over my shoulder, pausing to look out the door at the thermometer out there: ten below now.] Anyway, here there is really only one “best” seat in the house as far as I’m concerned: Couch Potato Heaven, between the woodstove and the PS2. My coffee cup stays warm on a trivet on the big cast iron mug warmer, a basket of fruit is within reach on the coffee table, and there is interactive entertainment.
The other PS2 is connected to the TV and VCR in Greyfox’s corner of the room. Theoretically, it’s even possible (using extension cables) for Doug to play games sitting on my bed, while Greyfox sits in his chair and works a crossword puzzle. I don’t think they’ve tried that. Doug and I wait until he vacates the chair to move in and turn on the PS2. That’s the cold corner of the room, anyway, between the big windows. Right now, it also has the wind chill factor. The current rising temperature in here is the result not only of my occasional rearranging of the wood in the stove to maximize combustion–time to go do that again right now–but there’s also a fan in Greyfox’s corner of the room stirring up the layer of warm air that collects by the ceiling, above the thermocline, and another fan blowing directly on the area of the woodstove where the thermostatic draft is, cooling it and keeping the air flow going to the fire.
….
I’m back. That was a timely move. The fire had burnt a hole in the middle of itself and I was able to break up some still-burning wood into coals and smooth them out into a flat ember bed that fills about two-thirds of the depth of the firebox. Then I put in two more pieces of the wood that has been warming on an old cast iron pancake griddle on top of the woodstove. Oop, just remembered, I neglected to move any more of the cold snowy stuff up from the wood box to the griddle. That can wait a bit, anyway. There’s more warm wood there now.
Anyway, as I started to say, that nostalgic moment I had, crouched there with my hands roasting and my face feeling tight and sunburnt as my butt froze and the draft whistled between my ankles… it was just silly. So what if we did have that warm “nest” where we could all gather and read by the light of the propane lantern, or play chess or some other board game? We spent a lot of our time there because the rest of the house was uninhabitably cold. I didn’t have houseplants in that place, except for a few hardy cacti, not after the first winter here in this valley. Here in this place, we move freely from room to room (even if we are dressed rather warmly in several layers) except for the room at the back of the trailer that we keep closed off for heating efficiency.
Most important of all, that place over there is not on the power grid. Here light comes at the flick of a switch. No changing of tanks, hauling the empties to the lodge to fill and wrestling the heavy full ones back in place, watching for propane leaks, finding a lighter and bracing myself for that *whump-whoosh* that always comes after an indeterminate delay as I light the lantern. Here, we don’t just have easy light, but fans to move the air around, and all the other advantages of electronica that’s not dependent on a little gasoline generator
(that I had to maintain) over there. Those advantages include the web and Xanga. It was a good move, I think.
BTW, it’s officially warmer than fridge-temp in here now: 41°F.
Comments (8)
A good move for us, and a good move for Xanga. Your old house sounds like heaven, though. Gathered in a small area with loved ones playing chess is about as sweet as life gets.
I want to go to Alaska now so badly.
It’s a balmy seventy, I suppose, here in my parents’ place, and it’s probably about sixty-something over in mine. I live on the top floor of my apartment complex, and all the heat from the people below me wafts up and fills my little one-bedroom box with their second-hand warmth. I like that idea.
Right on! This will surely give those soft city people something to think about.
One of the thing I love most about your blogs is the memories they stir up–your mention of the sloped roof for the mudroom did it this time.
I scrounged the aluminum panels from an abandoned place a few miles away. Every day for I don’t recall how many weeks I went over there most every morning in the old GMC Jimmy, gingerly climbed up on the roof past the broken glass and other hazards to confront my fear of heights–okay, it’s not so much fear of heights as fear of falling. Like Charley says, “I HATE falling off of houses.” But I digress.
Anyway, I’d unscrew the things and wrestle them down and into the truck, this being in my halcyon pre-hernia days, when I do stuff like that without worrying that my guts might fall out.
I liked getting the material for nothing but labor, but what I really loved was the regularity–doing the same thing every day. It was almost like having a job.
Of course, that was before I started my retail business and we lived way hand to mouth. But that’s another story.
Still another great blog, darlin–another one for zangazine, I’d say.
if the move gave you to us, then i’m glad for it, too.
when you write about the temperature indoors there…it makes me stop my bellyachin’.
layers of warm thoughts coming your way, kathy…
I cant even imagine coping with those temps…the worst we get is about 30f overnight in the middle of winter and that isnt very often either
My husband and I argue about whether to set the thermostat at 68ºF or 72ºF. There must be a way to stay warmer and save energy.
Brrrrrrrrr!
damn girl, you got balls to survive winters like that !
Congratulations this piece was featured in this week’s ZZ!
Keep up the good work!