A Frigid trip North.

[Jeff]

Harold and I went to the cabin for a couple days between Christmas and New Year to see our friend Vic, who's wife passed away while he was in the hospital.  He had returned home so we went and visited for a spell. When we left, we agreed his outlook gave us hope for his being around a lot longer.

We need to go back up. Things are not good. Vic is in the Hospital in the Soo. He called Harold and asked him and Sandi to come up. I'm going up in the morning. Itll take a day to warm the cabin. I'll watch their dogs at the cabin while mine defend the homefront. The high tomorrow is supposed to be 7° around noon then go down from there for 3 days. I was up here 2 years agi in feb when it got well below -20

[thecfarm]

Keep the fire burning!!!!

[Resonator]

Yup, Siberian air polar vortex next few days will put a limit on outdoor activities. Though hopefully this weather will help sell firewood.

Stay warm Jeff!

[Andries]

Jeff, do what you need to do to stay warm; electric blankets, fireplace roaring, space heaters. Your pups are depending on you to keep it civilized and hypothermia is a nasty thing.
Resonator, thanks for not blaming this one on us Canadians. Vladimir is sending this all the way from the Gulags, and we're enjoying -35° tonight. 🥶

[Magicman]

I understand your "mission of mercy".  Sometime we do what we do not for ourselves but knowing that you were/are wanted and needed.  That is what friends are for and what friends do.  Stay safe. 

[Resonator]

Yes Andries, I've got a good chief meteorologist on the local TV news to explain the different weather patterns. I watch every day to know when I'll need to plow. If it was coming from over by you, I'd get ready for an "Alberta Clipper".

[Jeff]

I was up there 2 years ago in February when it was pretty cold. Made a video. I had fell a balsam poplar right on top of the apple tree I had just pruned.  Paint was popping off the metal door.

[Old Greenhorn]

You fellas have a safe tip, this is some wicked weather you have coming in if it's not there already, but I get it, this is a trip you have to make. God Bless you for that.
 Even though you can heat the cabin and get it up to temp after a while, you still have no running water, so it's a different experience. Just be careful and thoughtful. We all don't bounce like we used to. Well, I don't anyway.

[Jeff]

Vic cut the shingles that are on my pavilion on a hit n miss shingle mill. He would set up every year at the Chippewa county fair in kinross. He also had a model baling machine they would run to make those cute little decoration straw bales about a foot long.

[chet]

Carefull on da outhouse seat. Trust me, frost bit butt cheeks ain't no fun. 

[Peter Drouin]

Carefull on da outhouse seat. Trust me, frost bit butt cheeks ain't no fun.

Or freeze on it and can't get off.

[Jeff]

Carefull on da outhouse seat. Trust me, frost bit butt cheeks ain't no fun.

I may cut me a foam circle.

[Andries]

Some hang the seat on the wall next to the woodstove. 

[gspren]

At our cabin we have electric to the outhouse, a switch by the cabin door turns on a light and the receptical inside the outhouse. In the winter we keep a small cube heater in there aimed at the seat, keeps the frost off.

[Magicman]

Our "Out House" at the Cabin is inside because I lived through those years growing up.....No mo !!

[beenthere]

1/2" styrofoam worked great back in the day when deer hunting central WI and the temps some nights were 18 deg F below zero. But those were the colder days in the 60's and 70's. Not like that anymore, for the most part. Those outhouse days are just memories, and happy not still in my life. 
hahaha

[Jeff]

Well, good news and bad news and versa-visa.

Only a third of the trip had treacherous rds. The hour in the middle.

Got the stove going and the cabin warming. Everything in here was 20 some degrees. As I stand here to type this the air is 68. I sat down first to post but that chair is still 20 something degrees.

Well pump, even after being drained and filled with rv antifreeze, only hums. The heater was off. I'm still hoping, but I'm melting snow in buckets to be able to let Harold's wife Sandi use the toilet in here.

Walked down to the pond. No openings from the bubblers, but there were weird spires of frozen bubbles.

Cabin was still 40 so I drove to Detour, got an onion and some potatoes and mushrooms. 

Pump still just hums if I plug it in. Took my stuff in, went back out and shoveled and walked in a path partway to the outhouse.  Then shoveled the sidewalk and porch, pump still hums.

Just spent the last 45 minutes in sheer panic. Could not find my keys anywhere. I had left the door unlocked in case any neighbors popped in while I ran to town, so didn't need them for the door. I mean my stomach was upset. I called home for encouragement to see if the spare truck key was there. We dont know where that is either now.

I went backout side, got in my truck, got outof my truck, stood there, walked over to the truck, got in it, looked again, got out, stood there and thought... THE POTATOES! I ran and slid back up into the cabin repeating out loud the entire way please be under the potatoes please be under the potatoes...

Thank God. They were under the onion. 
Pump still hums

[Jeff]

Oh, I forgot, when getting out of the truck on arrival, I noticed automotive safety glass all over the driveway gary had blown out for us.  I guess it was in the cab of the tractor, the dog kicked it out. All I know.

The deer have not been on the cameras. Turns out, they just are  not pointing at where the deer have been. 

Pump still hums.

Center part.


Normal people were not on the bridge today.




Not alot of snow, but there was some clover that made the drought this fall.




Bubbler Ice snorkle.

[Resonator]

Normal people were not on the bridge today.

...So only abnormal people were on the bridge? 

[Jeff]

Id say it looked like it was only me, so, yes.  

I saw maybe 6 other north bound vehicles between 9am and noon on i75

[SwampDonkey]

Spent a few winters at the old farm house in my young years and we never had no indoor bathroom until about 1976 probably. The families before us sure never. The out house was on the back of the woodshed, in the NW corner of the house. No house wrap then nor insulation. As far as washing, wasn't even an iron bath tub, nor a drain for one. You bathed at the sink by the stove. But there used to be chamber pots in bedrooms at night, and you had a vanity with a wash bowl and big ash water picture.

The old barn cat would crawl in behind that kitchen stove and in them round cut outs of the stove back there and have her kittens. How would we first know, the purring as she nursed them. Then we would rig up a box and line it with an old flannel coat or something and put her and kittens in that. She seemed to be content there. Every dog we had in those days that got into the porky quills ran back there inside that outhouse to be cornered and have quills plucked. The place was infested with porkies, old cars and old sheds out behind made porky houses. I think every piece of iron bought and paid for and later retired was out there for the duration. Still a bunch of iron out behind hidden by forest.

[Andries]

This was on the weather channel today.




Saw that when I got home after helping teach a woodworking class.
Didn't really need to see it, because Mama Nature was showing me this all the way home:



These are called SunDogs for folks that've never seen them before.
However, they also resemble the frostbite pattern that an un-heated back house seat will leave.
Jeff, have you seen these?

[GAB]

Andries:
What do sundogs eat in the winter?
How thick is the ice in or on your ice road these days?
At what temperature does propane freeze at?  The reason I ask is when I was in Alberta in Jan of '76 the rumor was that the propane was froze in the tanks in some hollers.  I was working at the Sundance power station near lake wabamun.
GAB

[Jeff]

Its -12  here I suspect my bed is around 45-50 I have an unzipped sleeping bag as a quilt. The stuff in here would normally be warmed up by morning, but it's really cold.

[Jeff]

I filled the chickadee feeder with sunflower seeds tonight. I hope to see some chickadees tomorrow. Sandi and Harold should be here shortly after noon, then on to the Soo they will go after dropping the dogs with me.