January 15, 2011

• Thirty Below Zero

  Standing by the wood stove this morning , I slip out of pajama bottom, into underpants.  Cold silk long johns against my skin next, I hope the insulation they’ll provide will more than balance the chill of slipping  into them.  I sit to put on thin over-the-calf sock liners, up over the silk to keep it from riding up when I slip on the merino wool long johns that have been warming on the stove.  Aah, the chill is gone.  Thus far, everything I have put on is white or off-white.  I find the heavyweight forest green Polar Fleece socks and slip them up over the bottom of the woolies, so they won’t ride up when I pull on the jeans.

  In long johns and pajama top, I dig in a drawer for an extra shirt to wear, then lay out 3 shirts to warm on the stove, and stand there warming my hands for a while.  A long-sleeve, long tailed dark blue cotton knit henley goes next to my skin, and gets tucked into the faded Gloria Vanderbilt bluejeans that come next.  After jeans come a pair of raggedy old black one-size-too-large sno-jogs, big enough for the bulky socks and felt innersoles.  Then come the rest of the shirts:  dark blue short sleeve cotton tee and long sleeve off-white wool blend henley. 

  Now that I’m through putting shirts on over my head, I brush my hair, clip my phone’s handset on the outer henley, put on the headset and a flowered bandanna over it to keep it and my hair in place.  The beloved little blue hat goes on over that.  Next goes a zippered black fleece hoodie, hood up over the hat, and I’m dressed.  No, I’m not going anywhere.  It is barely fifty degrees at eye level in here.  That’s a safe temp for my tropical houseplants, which are all up high where the temp is relatively warm.  I turned on fans to move heat around and disrupt the thermocline, but it is still frigid and drafty at waist height and below.  We’ve done what we could to insulate and winterize this place, but it remains drafty.

  

  That’s Doug, suited up to go out and split firewood this morning.  He had to come back three times, to warm his hands and defog his glasses, before he was done splitting and ready to start carrying in the wood.

  This weather is odd.  It’s not so much the temperature, though that is a bit lower than average.  Early this week the barometric pressure was so high it made news by screwing up pilots’ altimeters.  Our old aneroid barometer was reading just a hair shy of 31 inches of mercury then.  It has been creeping slowly downward all week, but still is above 30″.  Even odder is the difference in temp between here and the lower end of the valley.  We seldom experience more than about a ten-degree difference, but they have been consistently 40-60 degrees warmer than us this week.  While Greyfox was reporting thawing temperatures and slick conditions, we’ve been sub-zero all week.

  I have two chunks of firewood warming atop the stove, so it will ignite faster when I put it in.  The scent of roasting birch is pleasant.  I’m going to be adding some cooking smells to that soon.  I haven’t decided yet what to cook.  I’m thinking it will be something with a long cooking time, maybe a pot of soup on the stove top and something in the oven, too.  Anything to make it more comfortable in here until tonight when I can justify climbing back into the top bunk where it’s warmer.

  Life is good.  I’m happy.
  

  • 3:41 pm
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