December 5, 2005

• winter water run

  We did a water run today.  We had to, or we wouldn’t have bothered. 
  Water is not just necessary for life, hygiene, and food safety.  It
  is an essential ingredient in coffee.  When those jugs and buckets
  go empty, we load them in the back of Streak and go to the spring.

  We had the place to ourselves when we got there, but before we left
  there were two other trucks idling in the turnout waiting their turns
  at the spout.  Doug’s first task (at right) was to scatter kitty
  litter on the
  icy path for traction.  I cropped out most of the glove finger
  that inadvertently got in that shot of Doug, but there’s a fuzzy end of
  it on the left edge of the frame.

  I warned Doug before we left home that I was taking the camera and he
  would have to do some of the filling while I took some pics.

  I
  crossed the road and shot a few pics of the muskeg there.  This is
  the one I just call the “big muskeg” because it’s a lot bigger than the
  one across the street from where we live.

  Next picture, on the right, same scene, different angle and slightly closer POV.

  As far as I know,
  there’s nothing out there on the other end of that snowmachine trail except the Susitna
  River.   Just south of this muskeg, Sheep Creek runs down into the Big Su, about
  a mile away. 

  The Parks Highway was at my back when I captured
  this image.  Beyond those trees, out ahead there to the west, the
  next paved road is somewhere in Siberia.

  
  Doug
  wasn’t fooling around while I was across the highway.  He had
  unloaded all the empties from the hatch and closed up the car to
  conserve any heat that might have been in there, and had filled the
  first two buckets by the time I got back across the road.

  There
  in the parking area, before I got to work, I noticed a couple of small
  jugs that were deformed because the air inside them had contracted with
  cold.

    Recalling that someone had asked me what my new Canadian
  Army mukluks look like, I got a pic of the jugs, as well as the mukluks
  sticking out of the legs of my “new” down-filled pants, more of the
  fabulous mongo that Greyfox salvaged during the summer at Felony
  Flats.  Jug deformity didn’t show up too well, but the mukluks did.

  I
  helped Doug carry some empties down to the waterhole and shot a few
  pics of the little stream running down into Sheep Creek from the
  spring, and some of Doug as he worked.  He grumbled a little
  when I got in his way.   I took the hint and decided to get
  down to work.  When I held the camera out to him and asked him to
  get some pics of me filling buckets, he started taking off his
  glove.  As the cold air hit his hand with only a glove liner over
  it, he involuntarily gasped and whimpered a little.  I told him to
  put the glove back on, and I took the camera up to the car as he
  carried another pair of buckets up the trail.

  As I knelt there filling the next bucket when he came back down, I said
  we needed a pneumatic drill, a jackhammer, to clear that thick layer of
  ice off the pallet where we usually work.  Having to reach down so
  far and lift the buckets a greater distance makes a lot more work.

  Doug responded that a flame thrower would do the job.  I could see
  him enjoying the thought.  Then he said there were a lot of winter
  difficulties that could be eased by a flame thrower.  Have some
  paths to shovel?  Whoosh!  No shoveling.  Car won’t
  start — whoosh, no car.

  Clumsy in my insulated gloves, I dropped first a small jug cap and
  later one of the big bucket lids, into the pool under the
  outflow.  The little cap floated downstream and Doug caught up
  with it.  The big lid went to the bottom and I managed to fish it
  out with another lid without getting my gloves soaked.  They were
  wet enough on the surface, and the air was cold enough, that my glove
  stuck to one of the empty buckets as I went to put it under the
  outflow, and I almost lost the glove.

  Home felt wonderful, warm and welcoming when we got here.  I’m
  going to be in trouble with Doug tomorrow probably, though. 
  Before we did that run, he suggested we put it off another day, and we
  could have made it through a day on the five gallons or so of water we
  had left.  I nixed the procrastination on the grounds that the
  weather could be worse tomorrow.  He responded that it could be
  better, too.  Since he went to bed, the temp has started to
  rise.  It’s above zero already:  1.8° last time I
  looked.  Maybe he won’t notice.

  I’m back to my previous favorite profile pic, for two reasons. 
  One:  my darlin’ likes this one better.  Two:  frankly,
  I would rather see myself in any season but winter right now.  It
  has been two weeks of double-digit subzero temps with only one brief
  “warm” day when it got up to single digits above zero.

  ---

  Catbert tagged me for the “five weird things” thing that is going around. 

  Here are five weird facts about me, and don’t think it wasn’t hard
  narrowing it down.  The weirdest thing about me is the fact of my
  existence.

  1)  My ears were pierced in a
  parking lot (in 1967) by a Hells Angels mama using the pin on the back
  of an “End marijuana prohibition!” button.

  2)  I have on my lower back a purple “birthmark” that my mother
  told me was a forceps mark from my breech delivery, but I always
  suspected it to be the scar from when they separated me from my
  deceased / deformed siamese twin.

  3)  I was born in September (9th month), on the 18th day of the month (1+8=9), in 1944 (1+9+4+4=18 and 1+8=9).

  4)  I have this thing about time.  I don’t like to make
  appointments or go to sleep or get up at any set time.  I detest
  alarm clocks.  I do own a wristwatch and acknowledge the cultural
  obsession with punctuality to the extent that I keep it buckled around
  the shoulder strap of my purse.  I will not wear it.  I
  seldom consult it and often show up early for appointments just because
  I know it’s not acceptable to be late.

  5)   I have been told that this is weird:  I’m not
  afraid of death or public speaking.  Reportedly, those are the two
  biggest fears for the majority of people in my culture.  I think
  they’re weird.

  I have not been paying close enough attention to know who among the
  Xangans I know has or has not already done this, so I’m tagging my
  relatives and some sweet girls in the neighborhood who were kind enough
  to join my silly Railbelt Metro:  mystic_22, big_red_2000, ArmsMerchant, siriustrouble, and Deeble_Gurl. 
  

  • 3:02 am
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