A Whole Different Physics
Dec. 1st, 2022 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormWhen I started the truck to come in to work this morning it read -28C. The truck was angry, but since I've learned about battery blankets (which are a distinctly different thing than engine heaters) it started up quickly but with a bunch of weird noises that dissipated as it warmed.
The temperature on the front of my fridge was 20.3C. My fridge backs onto an internal wall, and faces the sink, a window, and the little under-sink ground-level electric blower that is so lovely on the toes when doing dishes. The thermostat for that under-sink heater is set into an outer wall, the same wall my plumbing is in, and it's turned to 5C. It was on when I came downstairs. I imagine the actual point of measurement for it is somewhere inside the wall. The 20.3C measurement and the <5C measurement were roughly eight feet away from each other.
Downstairs, in the woodstove room, it was 22.4C. There's a dog door in that room, lined and insulated but still pretty draughty, and the wall with the tap to outside is opened up around that tap to keep it from freezing, and the laundry room at the end of the hall has some air leaks. So I count that as pretty good.
I am evolving some plans to block air leaks, one light-switch-insulation or chimney-surround-panel at a time.
The floors are cold from 5-6" from the outer walls as the cold radiates along the floor beams and in through the concrete.
Outside things are... strange.
Open water smokes and steams. Everyone's morning water dishes looked like cauldrons of dry ice; the ducks all gathered around and stuck their heads in and looked vaguely sinister. A goose jumped into the water and sat there preening and I guess out there it was as much of a hot tub as it looked.
The pink sun slanted up over a river on a high simmer, steam rising and streaming away. On the lake even the fresh ice was smoking. Outside the office, in the sheltered little bay, there was 4" of perfectly clear, perfectly smooth ice. People are going to bring their ice skates.
All the water dishes were frozen, and not just frozen but bonded to the rubber. To empty them I need to smash the sides down on the hard ground, pop them upside down, and then stomp on the dome the water formed as it froze and expanded. It's some cardiovascular work for sure!
Everything that's supposed to bend mostly doesn't. I have one deep-winter extension cord which works well; that one goes to my fox light. The other cords: truck heater extension cord, phone audio jack and charger in the truck, even the seal on the shipping container are all stiff as frozen molasses and feel fragile. This is the weather where rubbermaid bins crack when you look at them sideways. Eggs burst and freeze with their clear insides hard as a rock so they never really leak out.
I used to think of freezing as a binary thing: ice is solid or it's not. I didn't realize it could be solid like the shell on an m&m or solid like steel and those were such different things. At this temperature even the airborne water is solid; it floats past in little glitters that I used to think were fanciful Christmas decoration but now understand are a very real thing. At this temperature water expands precipitously, bursting all containers it can't sufficiently bend.
Energy movement is very apparent. A little bit of wind strips heat away and gives physical sensation to the concept of convection. Clothing that protects from the air seems to melt away at the touch of a steering wheel, leaving me so grateful I have some specific conduction-resistant fabric for gloves. Stand in front of a south wall in the sun and there is the clearest, most loving feeling of warmth from the sun and my body understands how different radiation is from those other forms of heat transfer. I remember learning these in school, in physics, but now they live in my body.
So many technologies keep us alive in this. Without shelter, without clothing, I wouldn't last long. In many ways outside is so deadly and will be for months. I don't feel rejected by the land, though. I'm being shown wonders, and I'm being held by timbers and fire and the faint warm radiance of the sun, cradled in the same way I cradle my animals in straw and four walls, all of us curled up around our warm beating hearts until spring.
The temperature on the front of my fridge was 20.3C. My fridge backs onto an internal wall, and faces the sink, a window, and the little under-sink ground-level electric blower that is so lovely on the toes when doing dishes. The thermostat for that under-sink heater is set into an outer wall, the same wall my plumbing is in, and it's turned to 5C. It was on when I came downstairs. I imagine the actual point of measurement for it is somewhere inside the wall. The 20.3C measurement and the <5C measurement were roughly eight feet away from each other.
Downstairs, in the woodstove room, it was 22.4C. There's a dog door in that room, lined and insulated but still pretty draughty, and the wall with the tap to outside is opened up around that tap to keep it from freezing, and the laundry room at the end of the hall has some air leaks. So I count that as pretty good.
I am evolving some plans to block air leaks, one light-switch-insulation or chimney-surround-panel at a time.
The floors are cold from 5-6" from the outer walls as the cold radiates along the floor beams and in through the concrete.
Outside things are... strange.
Open water smokes and steams. Everyone's morning water dishes looked like cauldrons of dry ice; the ducks all gathered around and stuck their heads in and looked vaguely sinister. A goose jumped into the water and sat there preening and I guess out there it was as much of a hot tub as it looked.
The pink sun slanted up over a river on a high simmer, steam rising and streaming away. On the lake even the fresh ice was smoking. Outside the office, in the sheltered little bay, there was 4" of perfectly clear, perfectly smooth ice. People are going to bring their ice skates.
All the water dishes were frozen, and not just frozen but bonded to the rubber. To empty them I need to smash the sides down on the hard ground, pop them upside down, and then stomp on the dome the water formed as it froze and expanded. It's some cardiovascular work for sure!
Everything that's supposed to bend mostly doesn't. I have one deep-winter extension cord which works well; that one goes to my fox light. The other cords: truck heater extension cord, phone audio jack and charger in the truck, even the seal on the shipping container are all stiff as frozen molasses and feel fragile. This is the weather where rubbermaid bins crack when you look at them sideways. Eggs burst and freeze with their clear insides hard as a rock so they never really leak out.
I used to think of freezing as a binary thing: ice is solid or it's not. I didn't realize it could be solid like the shell on an m&m or solid like steel and those were such different things. At this temperature even the airborne water is solid; it floats past in little glitters that I used to think were fanciful Christmas decoration but now understand are a very real thing. At this temperature water expands precipitously, bursting all containers it can't sufficiently bend.
Energy movement is very apparent. A little bit of wind strips heat away and gives physical sensation to the concept of convection. Clothing that protects from the air seems to melt away at the touch of a steering wheel, leaving me so grateful I have some specific conduction-resistant fabric for gloves. Stand in front of a south wall in the sun and there is the clearest, most loving feeling of warmth from the sun and my body understands how different radiation is from those other forms of heat transfer. I remember learning these in school, in physics, but now they live in my body.
So many technologies keep us alive in this. Without shelter, without clothing, I wouldn't last long. In many ways outside is so deadly and will be for months. I don't feel rejected by the land, though. I'm being shown wonders, and I'm being held by timbers and fire and the faint warm radiance of the sun, cradled in the same way I cradle my animals in straw and four walls, all of us curled up around our warm beating hearts until spring.
