November 6, 2004

• Whoof!

  I’ve run hard up against the Catch 23 of the cold snap.  The only
  way to keep it relatively warm in here is to keep feeding wood into the
  stove.  Doing that incessantly builds up a deep bed of embers –
  hot coals — in there.  The deeper the bed of coals the less
  clearance there is to put more wood in through the door and the smaller
  the pieces of wood the stove will accept.  Also, when the level of
  coals is above the bottom of the door, they tend to fall out onto the
  carpet.  This carpet had burn marks when we moved in and we’ve
  added some.  The only way to diminish that bed of coals is to let
  the fire die down, rake down the coals so the ashes sink to the bottom
  and all the charcoal can burn up, then shovel out the ashes.  Of
  course, if I let the fire die down, it gets cold in here.

  If I’m going to do it, now’s the time.  The sun has just risen and
  we’re getting as much greenhouse effect through the front room windows
  as we’ll have all day.  I suppose it really has to be done, so
  I’ll just have to keep a close eye on the thermometer and move an
  electric heater or two into the living room if it looks like my
  houseplants are going to freeze.  Smudge pots — that’s what I
  need.    I remember my Uncle Unkie lighting those greasy
  black smoky things in his orange grove when I was little.

  I don’t know if the cause is an aging brain that’s calcifying, or if
  it’s because I’ve spent a lot of the last week in an altered state of
  consciousness, or if it’s just that all those people who called me a
  flaky space case all my life were right.  The last couple of days
  have given me several opportunities for refresher courses in the
  realities of an Alaskan winter and the physics of fire.  This is
  stuff I “knew” before but apparently forgot until the facts jumped up
  and bit me:

  • I need to put on the insulated gloves before I open the stove
    door.  It also helps to have the ash bucket there to catch the
    burning embers that fall out when I open the stove.  If the ash
    bucket isn’t there, that means that some burning coals fell into it on
    Doug’s watch and he set it outside to let the fire go out.
  • Burning embers — glowing coals — don’t behave like inanimate
    objects.  They jump and fly around at the slightest touch, and
    skate across each other with a mere breath of a breeze.  It’s fun
    to watch, but then I have to clean up the burning mess off the
    floor.  If an ember falls on a little dust-bunny of shed dog and
    cat hair, it makes an awful stench.
  • Duct tape is sticky.

  This last fact wasn’t part of the woodstove lessons.  It came up
  as I was reattaching the poly sheeting over the unused back door this
  morning.  Greyfox, a few years ago when I was too ill to do the
  job, had reused a sheet that had previously been used on a window, and
  I think he reused the same tape I’d used to cover the window. 
  Anyhow, during the past summer, the tape loosened and the door’s
  covering slipped down behind the cats’ litter box and the vacuum
  cleaner, there in that back corner of the hallway.

  Out of sight, out of mind, until it got really cold this week I kept
  neglecting to stick it back up.  So when I got up today, as Doug
  was going to bed, and I noticed that the temp in here was 47°F, I
  started working on the neglected bits of winterization.  I rolled
  up a tattered old Army surplus scarf (looks like WWII or Korean War
  vintage) and used it as a draft stopper under the door to the back
  “workroom”, which is probably just a store room until the weather warms
  up.  That’s when I noticed the draft coming off the back door.

  I thought about suiting up and bringing in the roll of poly sheeting
  and letting it warm up to flexibility.  Then I decided that the
  old covering would do.  To warm it, and the duct tape, and my
  fingers, up to flexibility, I set up two electric heaters back
  there.  Then I moved the vaccum and the litter box and moved a
  milk crate over to stand on.

  I was up on the crate and had just pulled about three feet of tape off
  the roll and torn it free, when the end of the tape whipped back on
  itself and stuck around my right middle finger.  The left hand was
  holding the other end of the tape so that it wouldn’t stick to itself
  or anything else.  The tape around my finger was stuck to me and
  to itself, firmly.  Working it loose with only a tenuous
  thumb-and-forefinger grip and not much leverage took a while, but I
  succeeded, and finally got the door covered.

  Geez!  It’s cold in here.  I’m glad I’m not outside.  It
  was -17.4°F when I got up in the dark around 6:30 this morning, and it
  has shot up to a whopping -8.9°F in the bright sunshine now.  The
  indoor temp is not rising so fast.  It’s only 52.3°F in here
  now.  Time to go drag out some old drapes and try to insulate this
  window behind the computer desk.
  

  • 3:01 pm
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