Nice weather - finally

February 2, 2007 (12:12pm)
1º F, Cool sun, W wind 9 mph, 26 mph gusts, -13º F wind chill.

Good afternoon,

Finally - - some decent winter weather for a change. It really is a beautiful day. The sun is out and the air is brisk - so is the wind. Actually, as long as I stay out of the wind, it is very pleasant outside. First time this year the longjohns came out of the drawer onto the this old body. Hard to really stay in the house with all of the layers of clothing on. Found the new boots work very nicely. I can put the wool socks into storage, probably will wear them with my "barn boots," but that is all from the looks of it. Maybe Margriet will have a use for them as she likes to walk around the house wearing them rather than shoes. Also think it is time to find the flannel shirts too.

Before nightfall, I plan to close up the vents underneath the house. With the extreme cool coming, I really don’t want the water to freeze up under there. I have some thin foam insulation in the shed, so will use that. Also want to add some fiberglass batts to the access opening door too. Just in case. It is not a very airtight access. Do wish we had more snow on the ground. Normally I would pile it up against the house to do the same thing. Actually, I think this might be easier.

The weatherman is talking of -35º F wind chill for tonight and on until Sunday. Real winter almost. Wind is supposed to stay up also. Driving into town this morning, there is a lot of snow blowing across the north-south roadways in the open parts. It is hard to tell where there is ice on the road or if it is just melted snow - looking like ice. No problems, but was thinking about it a lot.

While in town, we noticed the price of gasoline has gone up again. $2.199/gallon is the present price. Up from 1.969/gallon just a little bit ago. It really makes a difference now too. I try to run the engine on the van for at least 10 minutes before going anywhere when the temperature drops to 0º F or below. That uses a lot of gas and not doing the milage rate any good.

The main reason to go to town was to pay a couple of bills, pick up the mail, and stop at the library. Accomplished all. When we stopped at the library, I asked Margriet to get out before I parked up against the snowbank. Her door wouldn’t open from the inside! We have been having some problem with it for the past week or so, but thought it was just some ice frozen internally somewhere. When it warmed up, the door worked fine. I don’t really want to take it all apart in this weather, so hope we will make do until the weather warms some. Had the same problem in Green Bay a bit ago.

Yesterday we were talking of winter activities. One think led to another and ended up talking about cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Guess it must have peaked Margriet’s curiosity. Sounds like we will be looking for some snowshoes. Of course we probably have to go north to use them. Not much snow here! It has been many years since I was on snowshoes and the idea really intrigues me too. It is a pleasant way to travel in the woods. No noisy or smelly engine for power, only a quiet and slow way to really be a part of the surroundings.

Trying to get yesterday’s blog posted was a real adventure yesterday. For some reason it took a couple of hours after trying everything I could think of, it finally went through. When it did, I got a message from the blog site saying they were having problems so it had been down for a while. Wish I had known that beforehand.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><