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Is it spring yet?

I’m not really feeling that way but this week is definitely being a challenge for me. Let’s start with the snow. Turns out the snow fell before we could get some wood in. Fortunately there’s wood at the house we can use. Unfortunately the wood is at the house and needs to be carried 500′ back. And it’s a bit wet. But it’s working out okay as the snow is well packed on the path and so the wheelbarrow goesbetter on the path as the rocks are all buried. And we’ve got a routine down now of drying the wood on top of the stove. It makes it perfectly dry and the yurt smells nice too.

But that’s not all. Yesterday there were problems with the sink drain. Lately it’s been draining slowly and has been freezing closed so we’ve had pools of stagnant water in the sink. Yesterday I had had enough and thought of what I thought was a brilliant idea. I’d move the sink backwards into the yurt, dragging the hose inside where it was warm and it’d thaw. What I didn’t count on was that the pipe would come disconnected under the sink and all the water came cascading out ofboth sides of the sink and onto the floor and the insides of the cabinet. There was a huge puddle inside the cabinet and on the floor. And inside the cabinet was the dry cat food, every plastic bag and empty cat food bag we’ve brought home since summer. Yes, it was ugly. But something was different. I could, and often would have been frustrated and angry about it. Instead it struck me as funny. Paul’s coming over as it was gushing out asking “Who peed?” helped, for sure. Then it just seemed comical - me running over to grab the first thing I could think of to absorb it - a fitted sheet. No dice there, it was useless. Anyway, after a few minutes I’d sopped up the water with a towel, hung the towel outside, emptied the water out and at the same time cleaned out the cabinet which I should have done months ago.

Then Sage came back. And a few hours later I asked if she could go out and bang on the hose outside to bust the ice. She did and I heard the water go out. And I didn’t even notice until she drained her pasta that the reason it all drained was that the hose had come disconnected again. Todd gets another towel and repeats the process.

Then I decided to fix it thinking I might be able to do it myself. I go outside, bang the hose on a tree and hear Sage laughing and yelling“Disaster! Huge disaster!!” Todd cheerfully wipes it all upagain and in fact wipes up the same water twice as I had poured the water I sopped up back in the sink thinking I had it fixed.

This morning I finally think I’ve fixed it. I drained everything and brought the hose in. And lo and behold the plastic pipe had a kink in it. The kink prevented the water from quickly draining and also prevented the pipe from fully draining acting like your finger on the top of a straw full of liquid. So I cut the kink out and rebuilt the whole thing. It works beautifully now. We’ll see how it does tonight with the -20Fwindchills and single-digit temps.

But that’s not all, either! This morning Paul wanted breakfast. So I went over to the stove, lit a match and turned on the gas. Nothing. Not even a tiny hiss. We’re out of propane officially now. And still I’m cheerful. I just stoked up the woodstove, opened the dome to let the excess heat out and cooked his oatmeal and my coffee on the stove. Tonight I plan to make tofu curry on the stove too. If it doesn’t work great we’ll dig out the fire pit outside and take stove-dried wood out there to make the cooking fire. Either way we’re okay.

But even that’s not all. We’re running low on lamp oil. Probably we’ve got about 2-3 days more available and then the nights will be candlelit. We’re also out of bread which is quite a staple around here let me tell you. We go through several loaves a week.

Oh, and we’re not going to be hearing any CDs for a while either - we’re out of batteries for the boom box. But luckily we did get one thing the day before the storm that will help keep us sane. A windup radio. Crank the handle 60 times and get 45 minutes of AM, FM or Shortwave. It gets great reception and you don’t notice the sound of the hand generator unwinding itself after a while. It sounds like a fish tank air pump. So no matter what we’ll always have music now. And it’s nice to have it be powered by us, too. No batteries to buy, recharge or throw away.

It doesn’t look likely that we’ll be getting out of here anytime soon. Today the forest looks like a scene from the movie The IceStorm (do any of you love it as much as we do?) It’s lovely to look at with all the trees covered in ice, icicles everywhere and the sound of tinkling ice falling off the trees (and the sound of a few trees themselves falling with the weight. I am thinking, though, that I might just try to brave the roads on Monday if we get nothing more in the way of precipitation. I can bring back a tank or two of propane, bread, lamp oiland other provisions. I don’t expect to make it up the hill with the car (we live on a road that has an amazingly steep hill that’s about1/2 mile long. But I can carry everything up if need be.

Actually, it is kind of funny. In some ways I think our life is actually being as physically difficult as many of you seem to think it is. Usually in many ways it feels hardly more difficult than life in the city. But now hauling water and wood through the snow, cooking on a woodstove and soon living without even oil lamps, it could feel pretty rustic. And ironically we’ll still have the laptop and be connected (knock on wood). It still seems odd to me.

And speaking of all that I need to finish up. Paul’s sleeping and Sage is getting water and laptop batteries. When she gets back we’re going to do some work and then I’m going to go out and fetch another wheelbarrow load of wood so we have a good supply of wood to burn while the cold rages outside. Tonight it’s going down to about zero again and again we’re having 20-40 MPH winds.

And you know what? I still prefer this to summer here.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Still Snowbound