No shit there I was…
I’d been having a fine time messing with bread recipes and fiddling with my 3d printer but it was time to haul firewood. I’d been anticipating a warm-ish afternoon break but it didn’t happen. It was cold but nothing special. I suited up and tromped outside…
I avoid starting my tractor when it’s super cold (unless there’s snow to be plowed). I prefer my Jet Sled.
Wait. Stop!
It’s at this point that I started to write about my beloved Jet Sled. It’s an awesome tool. I use it for my favorite homestead activity, converting dead trees into a warm house. (That’s a weird way to say “firewood” isn’t it?)
Anyway, I went down a rabbit hole with the Jet Sled and it’s too cold to entertain rabbit hole thoughts. I pushed all that to a second post. It’ll go live some other time.
Back to the story…
So I’m dragging a Jet Sled full of firewood to the house and the weather is rather brutal. I’m not the type to flake out over rough weather. It’s winter; happens every year. But something was up.
You see, the world has gotten so weird that I hardly believe a fucking thing anymore. In the old days I trusted, or at least paid attention to, weather reports. But everything is sketchy all the time now. What once was like this:
“It’ll be normal temperatures for this season. It’s gonna snow the average amount for January. Sucks to live where you do, loser.”
Has turned into:
“OMG it’s snowing! This is the worst thing that has ever happened. We’ve named it Winter Snowstorm Beelzebub. There has never been snow like this in the history of January. Nobody will survive. You’d probably like that wouldn’t you? You bastard! Little birds in trees are going to freeze and it’s entirely your fault.
You assholes don’t fret enough about global warming and now nature is punishing you. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Everything not tied directly to your SUV’s exhaust is because Trump is the antichrist.
How dare you!”
Honestly, you can’t tune in and get simple basic data. We used to have reports that would say shit like degrees Fahrenheit. Now, it’s all “cooked numbers”. “It’ll be eleventy zillion degrees windchill factor with a ‘feels like’ index of flesh being torn from your bones.” Will the winds be basically from the south at 10 MPH? Who knows? “Winds will be variable, gusting to 600 MPH and this too is because you fuckers voted wrong.”
So, I have returned to the old ways. I observe.
What I observed was not great. The chickadees, which are the toughest little pipsqueaks on earth, were eating like their lives depend on it (which is literally true in a cold snap). They were in frenzy, like if I stood still long enough they might start pecking at my nose.
Chickadees fuckin’ know!
The wind was still. Very calm, but the clouds were moving. Were they moving oddly? Hard to say.
I’m not a meteorologist, I just know when nature is throwing red flags.
I loaded the wood in a hurry and got inside to thaw out. As soon as I was moderately warm I hauled a second load. Just in case. And that made me chilled again.
Suddenly I was very worried about the generator battery. It’s on shore power 24/7 but it’s about 5 years old and the service guy said I should replace it. Sound advice which I ignored! Now there is no tomorrow. It’s only a small battery but I’ve no idea how to jump the generator. I grabbed our two small GB-20 jump packs and put them inside. Both were holding a charge but I topped them off. The rest of our machines are on shore power for block heaters and/or battery maintainers.
Sitting by the fire I finally accepted the inevitable and checked the NOAA weather service. They were in full freak out mode. I was under something like two watches and a warning. (I get watches and warnings mixed up.) Actual weather service announcements are cryptic; they sometimes overreact and sometimes don’t. In this case I was warned of cold temperature but it was masked in “wind chill”. Deducing whether my septic tank will freeze is not aided by “wind chill”. It’s fuckin buried! I’m a grown ass man, I don’t need a warning that says “exposed flesh will get frostbite in X minutes”. I need a number and the units that go with the number.
Then I went to the internet. The consensus was this: “AAAAAAAAUUUUUHGGHGGGG!”
Trying to glean information from the blow dried dipshits doing videos like Powerpoint is a religion was a slog. All about how people emote about shit. “What do you think Janet?” “Well Julie, I think this is very scary.”
Put up a map and don’t stand in front of it! And quit parsing the map to wherever you’re most sexually attracted to viewers. If Nashville or Los Alamos is about to be destroyed that’s for them to fret about, show me North America, or CONUS… ideally with fronts and wind patterns.
Ugh. The enshittification of the internet is so complete it’s hard to remember when it was factual.
The best I could glean without spending an hour watching regional reports about Oklahoma City or Baltimore or whatever is that a huge band of CONUS was gonna get curb stomped by cold. I live north of all that and I was gonna’ get equally curb stomped. But since I live in East Cowschitt, Nowher, it’ll never make the news.
I put on a load of hot water laundry. That always helps keep pipes thawed. Then I went around the house turning on all sorts of small heaters and other gadgets that “leak BTUs” into the environment. I could use all I could get. My detached office is lit by LED and I briefly wished it was back on the old incandescent projection lamps. I ran water from various faucets, etc…
I thought about baking something in our new LP stove. I was thinking about recipes when the generator kicked on. Good news is it started. Bad news is we were on generator power well before the sun set.
The chickadee warning had come true!
I have a “load shedding” agreement with the local electric monopoly. If the generator doesn’t start I get dinged a huge fee. I’m so glad it started.
It usually runs 2-4 hours max. This time it was 6. Not a good sign.
The next morning was -29f and the generator was on again. I checked our furnace fuel. We’re at 1/4 tank. Not bad for January but the oil company office was open so I called up a refill order. No rush, no need to pay an “emergency delivery fee”, just put me on the list. Since I’d called early I was put on the routine schedule.
Then it was just a matter of burning firewood and listening worriedly to that generator (which to it’s credit was humming like a champ).
The next day was -28. The oil delivery guy showed up and I happily cut a $500+ check. The generator was on again as the oil was delivered. I hauled more firewood. When shit gets real I need the furnace and the woodstove both; and that’s just to keep it habitable. Cozy is limited to a ten foot radius around the woodstove.
When I was on generator power I was mildly thrifty with AC power. For example, I used the LP stove with a percolator to make my coffee. As soon as we were on grid I ran loads of laundry, took hot showers, and cranked up the coffee maker.
Another day.
Another day after that. By now the generator is off. The load shedding arrangement probably has a “max hours” clause and they might have hit it. It’s the most hours on generator I’ve had in 3 days since I installed the white elephant.
It’s a PITA that feels like a siege. I flit from system to system maintaining civilization (or at least thawed pipes and heating systems) and monitoring everything. It takes up my full attention. But it’s not my first rodeo. It’s fleeting. In a few days it’ll all be over. So far, we’ve ridden it out fine. I even started my truck and (after a very long warm up) made a dump/grocery run. In anticipation of the weather I’d filled it with “wintersafe diesel”. Glad I did.
Unfortunately, the fat lady hasn’t sung. I thought the “worst was over” when the grid stayed up a full day but I guess not. It’s -22f and dropping. Not unbearable or even improbable, but something that merits attention. Tomorrow I’ll haul at least two sleds of firewood and otherwise stay hunkered down.
I should have consulted with the chickadees instead of paying attention to the generator.
Because I can’t help myself…
