Greenstorm's Journal

-38C on the truck this morning. She started, yay battery blankets, and I ran her for half an hour to prep her for restarting later, so I can go into town at lunch and check the mail. The main room was 19C this morning, impressive for the end of a 10-hour stove run in weather like this. It's the kind of weather where, if you dump a bucket of water on the ground, it makes noises like you've started a fire and it's getting good teeth into the kindling.

I'm so, so grateful for that 6-8" of snow we got right before this. The snow blanket on the house keeps it a good 10C warmer in here.

I fed and watered animals this morning without a hat and it was a mistake. I had to come back in and get one. Working from home so I can bring them water on my breaks because it will 100% freeze. Everyone seems pretty cozy, the chickens fluffed up almost round on their perches and the pigs nearly invisible under the straw. I am very glad to have got that last minute extra straw. I'll use a couple bales to build an extra windblock for the ducks since they say it'll be colder again tonight than previously forecast. Either way the prep I did in -20 is paying off. This is terrible weather to work in, even if it is beautiful.

This is probably the day the interior humidity drops below 10%. Drying clay pots and plants slowed it down a bit, I guess.

There are six animals plus me curled up in the woodstove room right now, and I know Whiskey is right around the corner on the stairs. The dogs are napping after a morning patrol while I fed things; the cats are waiting for breakfast.

I'm tired, and much is in doubt, but this could look like being happy.

I was rushing around to get to the airport and my ring flew off outside. It bounced off the icy, frozen-goose-poop-studded driveway with a surprisingly loud clang. The truck was running, had been warming up. I'd just fed the baby pigs and was going to grab stuff and go, to be on time.

Now I was looking for a gold ring in a varying field of sparkly cratered tan-through-brown in varying textures.

The last several days had been a lot.

It's been so cold, and cold with no snow insulation. We have maybe 8" on the ground, if that, which means that the cold drives right in. I've been working hard and more or less constantly to make sure everyone is ok, which means running a lot of water and food and straw; with no snow to insulate the outside of animal houses, straw inside is the best bet. But the straw clogs up with poop and needs to be refreshed every day or two, the pile of straw in the animal houses climbs higher (great for the garden, all layered with manure, but too much and I run out of headroom) and then every piece of clothing I own has prickly stabby awns and slivers of straw in it but I need to wear clothing all the time because it's cold. Water goes out a couple times a day from inside, which is fine, but then it freezes in the containers and needs to be removed either with a lot of brute force stomping if I'm extra strong or by being carried into the house and set by the stove until the ice plug loosens enough to slide out.

My insulated gloves are MIA, or at least, I seem to have the right hand from several pairs. I sewed myself fingerless polar fleece gloves which lets me carry the coldest things in my palms and leaves my fingers free to open feed bags, but the first couple days especially it takes my hands a long time to rebuild the circulation they need to function in weather like this. My fingers go numb, I finish what I'm doing and go in, I warm up, I go back out, rinse, repeat. Several days into it my hands maintain warmth much better. The skin on my face goes numb too, but I've figured out some sort of system with two tubes of polar fleece that keeps my breath from freezing on cloth but covers my cheeks.

Nothing behaves. Water acts like wax poured from a lit candle: it forms that film first, then solidifies. A good bucket of water can stay mostly thawed for an hour or two, but a little spill instantly makes a spot that will be slick all winter, and a spill in the wrong place can weld a door closed or wedge it open. I spend a surprising amount of time walking around with a hammer knocking ice out of inconvenient spaces. Plastic snaps. Thank goodness my staple gun is a plain mechanical object; once I warm it up inside so it doesn't burn my hands with cold, I can take it out and staple old feedbags to the inside of the bird houses to block draughts and provide insulation. Starting the truck, even with a battery blanket and block heater, sounded like the end of the world for awhile.

The cats, trapped inside, are bored. They form new relationship with each other, trying to entice each other into playing but too irritable to respond reasonably so they squabble and zip through the house at full speed with tufts of each other's fur in their mouths.

The plastic of the special, insulated, triple-layer dog door has gone hard which means that when Thea comes in and out every three minutes to check in here, the door doesn't shut properly and the temperature in here drops, sometimes as much as 5 degrees in 3 minutes. It takes the stove awhile to recover that.

The stove, meanwhile, has a stupendous chimney and so its heat output fluctuates with the outside temperature and the wind and goodness knows what else. I carefully swing the cycle around so I can go into the airport for six hours without the house getting too cold, but the flight is cancelled and I have to set an alarm for 1 and then nope, 2am to refresh the wood so we stay warm enough in here since I'm not up already driving home at that time.

The floor is covered in fragments of bark, and straw. I can sweep it three times a day or not, it makes o difference. The patio doors in my cathedral-ceilinged livingroom leak air like a sieve and I haven't had the wherewithal to move furniture to put window wrap on them. I close the curtains but the draught still comes through and the floor in there feels like ice.

So when the ring that symbolizes my commitment to whatever part of this is meaningful slips off my finger and I can't see it in the field of goose poop in first glance, and I have an appointment that symbolizes the outside world that wants me to give up on this, I wonder if it's a sign. Do I leave the ring wherever it is (still can't see it) and come home and write a post offering all the outdoor animals to someone and just-- go? Create a life where the weather doesn't dictate my actions, even if it continues to inform my choices?

I decided to leave the ring there but I kept standing there, looking, anyhow. This is a symbol that this is enough, I thought, I'm leaving. But. I kept looking for the ring. Eventually I spotted it: gold, the colour of shiny goose poop, in piles of frozen shiny goose poop.

It turns out that was the morning after the coldest night. It was supposed to get colder the next night and it never did. At 9pm I took water out in buckets, watching the animals drink by headlamp, and fluffed up straw. My hands were acclimatizing and I didn't need to come in and warm up, they felt fine. At bedtime none of the animals was shivering, always a good sign. The forecast wind never appeared and in the dead calm it felt almost warm.

They say tonight is the last of the hard nights for awhile, or at least, the last of the deathly cold ones. The next forecast is for snow and, somehow, freezing rain which is of course any ran that lands on a ground that has been seared by -35C for days. Several daily runs with water will be replaced by trying to start the snowblower and trying not to knock the blades loose on towers of frozen goose poop. Carrying so much straw will be replaced by several days of butchering and then carrying much less straw.

I took water and straw out tonight again. No one was shivering. We got through last night, which wasn't as bad as expected. We got through the night before that, which was way worse. We got through several nights previous to that where the cold built and settled like a malevolent beast. Somehow the pigs were trotting around and even the tiny, densely-furred little ones were roughousing as I fluffed the straw for them, and the adults got down to business grabbing mouthfulls of it and pawing it to fluff it up by my side. They drank two buckets of water and grunted interestedly and went to bed. The chickens fluffed up perfectly round on their perches (2x4s turned on their wide sides, so they can perch without frostbiting their toes) with little frost spots where heat could make it through those feathers. The ducks tried to climb into their bowl of water. The muscovies were alert under their lamp and not shivering and were walking fine-- if somonee is going to get frostbite it will be them and I've lost some over the years to frozen feet. Their cushion of straw seemed to be working though.

Now the dogs are both burrowed into straw in their chosen locations. The cats are strewn across the woodstove room as the embers burn down and down until there's enough room for me to load up a night's worth of wood. Everyone is nestled in their beds. A thousand scratchy shards of straw poke through my pants, needling at my legs; upstairs I have piles of fabric that, maybe, won't hold straw if it's sewn into new pants. My ring gleams once more on my finger. In eight or nine hours the worst of this one bit will be over, and the next bit will begin.

Well, I may not be doing well generally, but I do feel more like myself whenever I spend some time outside.

The difficulty being, today was between -24 and -20, plus wind chill in the afternoon which takes it to "frostbite in minutes" according to the weather report. So I kept hopping out for anywhere between fifteen minutes and an hour, hopping back in, warming up, and hopping back out. Everyone got water twice, food twice or three times, and fresh straw.

I also hammered and sledged ice away from the tap so I could fit the buckets under it again. Each time a drop splashes outside the bucket it builds up another layer of ice, like a candle, until the ice on the side of the house is so thick the bucket doesn't fit anymore. It's a problem.

The muscovies got a heat lamp, which because the cord that runs out there got its plug frozen into the ice, meant running a chain of three extension cords out there. Then when I was fiddling with the heat lamp I had out there, the cold caused the casing on the heat lamp cord to snap in two places, so I needed to get a new heat lamp too.

I'm concerned about the pigs. They seem to be ok-- they aren't shivering in the mornings, and there are so many of them in those pig houses it stays pretty warm in there. But every time I give them straw they just pack it down under them instead of burrowing under it and using it as insulation. I guess they don't need the insulation yet. I keep giving them straw and they keep packing it down, though, it feels like a waste? Maybe after the butcher there'll be fewer and they'll go under. I don't seal up all the holes in the houses because the moisture needs to vent, to avoid frostbite -- but normally there's a lot more snow up against the sides of the A-frame as external insulation at this point, and then I go around with a shovel and heap some up against the walls of the square ones. I'll inspect in the morning and see, as usual. This really would be a whole different experience if I could just rest and be sure that everyone out there was doing well, but each winter there's a different set of situations during the cold spike.

This cold means super dry, which means my fingers don't freeze to things. That's good. It also means I touch metal things, which is bad: metal really does feel like it's burning at these temperatures.

It would be nice to have someone around who is familiar with these experiences. It really is very different from anywhere else. Yet another set of experiences that, when I describe them to people, they just look at me funny. I guess that's kind of my whole life.

-20C last night, probably -30 tonight. Last night was a windstorm and I think it snowed, but everything blew so much it's hard to tell. The outdoor tap was frozen this morning, even after I stoked the fire. I ended up putting a toque on the tap and turning the fire way up (this 24-hour period I'll go through three loads of wood instead of the usual 1) and it finally thawed around 2pm.

Everyone has had a bunch of water and food. I couldn't dig the cord out of the ice to give the muscovies heat so I gave them a ton of fresh straw. The front of the pighouse blew off (that A-frame is just falling apart) but when I went out to fix it in the sunshine I lost most of my visual field due to a migraine and had to come in for a bit. It's dark now, I'll go out and carry a ton of straw to the pigs and put the front back on for them, hopefully I'll be able to see this time. I hope the visual thing is just the normal non-pain parts of a migraine and going out there won't launch a full one.

House is warm, I've got a bunch of wood split for the next few days, but really when it's this cold I just want to hunker down inside and stay safe.

Last couple days I've sewed a test sock and a test fingerless glove. Both need alterations (fingerless glove needs width added at the wrist, sock needs to figure to how to angle the toes instead of going straight across). I wore my test Marie Claude all day today and it seems ok under the polar fleece I have on. The sleeves are just that touch snug. I think the reason the back is a little weird is the whole thing is sitting tilted backwards, that is, the shoulders are sitting too far back on my body, maybe because the back of the neck comes up too high on my neck (because I sewed the band on messily?). Tempted to make a big shaggy thermal pro version of it anyhow.

Ooof, ok, it's dark and work is over. Wish me luck on the migraine/whatever it is.

This morning I noticed I am moving more easily. I woke up and stretched, comfortably. When I walk I don't need to force joints to move against the tightness of the opposing muscles. My hips swing, my stride is comfortably long, things don't hurt.

The house is between 27C and 30C, I've been running the woodstove on a 24 hour 2/3 full cycle with birch for the last few days because I don't want to pay for electricity. It feels a little too warm to think, but it is so good for my body.

What a dream, not to hurt and to move freely. I step out into the crisp cool and things keep working, I haven't been out long enough for things to knot up. I wonder if a sauna once per day for an hour would replicate this effect? Just loosen things out so the cold never fully seizes them up. It's funny because I don't really notice it happening, as through September my house was at 17Cish and it felt fine, but then it goes away and I feel amazing.

My relationship to cold is complicated. I'll think about it more sometime.

The real cold is coming. -30C was forecast this week, and -20ish for the last couple nights, but two nights ago I woke up to -26 and now boxing day night is supposed to be -40. There's a significant difference between -20 and -40 from my perspective, though I think for most people inside it's mostly just all cold.

I'm thinking of rigging some heat lamps for the other chickens and the geese. It's challenging with waterfowl (the other chickens also have the breeding anconas in with them) because chickens are reasonably polite with indoor water but waterfowl are not: they will stand in it and splash it all out, or they will get in, get out, and promptly freeze their feet to the ice that was water they splashed out a second ago. If the water is above freezing it's much, much warmer than the outside air so it's a good place to stand and warm toes from their POV. It just isn't sustainable. So I need to make the heat lamps high enough they won't get splashed or hit by wings, low enough they actually heat something up, and the water needs to be covered enough that no one can get into it. If I have heat lamps over the water, it needs to be covered with something non-flammable and that the birds won't freeze to when it's covered in ice and they try to stand on it. I rig something up every year; I have no idea what this year will look like.

Additionally, moisture from the warm water & the animals' breaths is very dangerous. Because the ambient air is so cold, the moisture condenses on skin and can cause frostbite in temperatures that would otherwise be fine. Chicken combs tend to get this kind of frostbite which is why I keep chanteclers and americaunas: chickens with combs flat to their heads that aren't as vulnerable.

Everyone will get more deep straw as insulation - I am so glad I managed to get two large bales of straw last week, and Josh and I rigged up a rope to a tree so I could drive them off. I'm not worried about running out of straw at all so I can bring everyone fresh everyday if they need.

I'm hoping with all the geese pooping all the time I can get some heating from deep bedding going in the woodshed: it's got a deep mixed layer of straw and manure right now, but not enough manure to really heat it up. It's harder to get good bacterial action going in winter when it's already cold, but their bodies on top of it warm it up some. We'll see: it worked the first year I got muscovies.

This is really hard on equipment too: when water freezes in a bucket it freezes fast and often expands enough to pop the bucket. I've lost several of what I thought were indestructible rubber buckets to these temperatures because the bottom blew out. Plastic gets very brittle and tends to snap. Machines aren't thrilled, though I just got some of the recommended 0W-30 oil for the snowblower when it's below -20C, it came with I think 10W and that's what I've been using. It should help. I think the truck might have the wrong oil on it too, it's showing noticeably higher oil pressure when it's cold, but if I use the plug-in heater it seems ok. Plus, equipment-wise, my tap has been hard-frozen since Josh was here despite the temp warming to where it shouldn't have frozen. I'll try a hairdryer on it but I'm worried I may need to open up that wall. Ugh. I'm not sure how much it would cost to run a frost-free standpipe to the pigpen but that couple thousand dollars might be worth it, or at least it feels like it on days like this.

I met a person at a salve-making workshop the other day who remembers this house when her friend lived here long ago. Apparently, in addition to the wire and water to the back barn, there were also garden standpipes for water. Barn, wire, water everywhere: that infrastructure would have been so precious to me. I wish it hadn't been taken out, and I kind of wonder why it was.

Anyhow, I have some chicken stock to can, and some bones on the deck to turn into pork stock to can, and I'll run that through on the coldest day to boost the house a little.

I'm also giving thought to an air purifier/heater item for the bedroom since I know wood heat tends to be hard on the lungs, cats aren't great for me (though they aren't supposed to be in the bedroom; Whiskey lies there with his paws both just outside the threshold) and my lungs are already pretty trashed from years of housecleaning work and forest fires. Any room without the woodstove in it needs a bit of a boost at -40. Anyhow, it's a thought. I did a sweep of the rooms with baseboard heaters (one kleenex on one in the guest room, one bottlecap on one in the pantry) and I think we're as good as it gets.

Below -25 or so I get pretty tired when I spend a bunch of time outside so I'm revising my accomplishments down a little for this next week. If we're all fed and watered and no one gets frostbite I'll consider it a win.

I don't want you to misunderstand me: most cold incidents happen right around freezing, when people get wet and then their clothes no longer function properly. We treat that sort of weather with a little more contempt, and our carelessness costs us.

But.

It's -40 here. That's where the streams cross, where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet. It feels perilous in my bones, at least whenever I'm not sitting home next to a really big pile of firewood and my woodstove.

It's not instant frostbite weather unless you're wet, and it's relatively hard to get wet at this temperature. I can go outside and do chores with single-layer work gloves and get cold fingers and my cheeks burn, but it doesn't damage me.

It's a little that nothing *works* in this weather. Batteries fail, so vehicles and flashlights and phones don't have juice to start or run. Tucker's little car won't start, and my 4runner with a brand new battery takes a bit. More concerning, my brakes don't really work; I get the feeling my brake fluid is, well, not super fluid in there and I really have to mash the pedal to have an effect. Normally my lights turn off when I use the fob to lock my doors, but they don't in the cold.

It's a little that the inside walls of my house get real cold and the inside of my windows and dog door ice over. The humidity drops below 10% (which is the tolerance of my equipment) because any humidity freezes immediately to the windows.

If you're dressed right and your car breaks down in cell signal (there isn't a ton of cell signal up here) you'll be fine. If you're in an accident, your car stops heating, and you are upside down or stuck in your car and can't think quickly to get help? You're dead.

Waterlines become an issue. My outside tap freezes around -25 or so.

Muscovies start to get frostbite on their feet around -25 too. If I don't manage them very well and carefully I have to cull.

The ground sounds like Styrofoam. Ice becomes like very solid rock, not really breakable or stompable anymore.

The laws of physics just seem different, and my body instinctively feels afraid. These are the days I don't think humans belong in outer space, it's just too cold. Maybe we don't even belong this far north.

A week of this, then it warms up, and maybe a couple more weeks of it this winter. Wish me luck.