9:15 temperature this morning: -15F
I'm not counting plugging in the car or scraping the windshield. I wish I had snow to push off the car, but sadly, we aren't getting enough snow. We've gotten exactly enough snow to help me see the moose near the side of the road or edge of the forest, but that's about it.
No, this list is about specific dopey things I plan to do, and have to do, in the next week.
For one thing, every winter the frost heaves my front porch up an an angle, a very, very slight angle. You wouldn't even know it had happened except the screen door knows. It starts to scrape at the out bottom edge, and now it will only open halfway. This is incredibly annoying and inconvenient and it pisses me off (!) when I'm trying to get in or out the door with two dogs, a messenger bag and grocery bags, or a violin or guitar. It's freaking annoying even if I'm not carrying a bunch of stuff. So I counted the screws holding the door onto the house. Four. Well, I could probably do that in one go if it doesn't go to -20. I'll have to stop and warm up my hands if it takes too long but that's par for the course. I have an electric drill, and I am planning to take that stupid screen door off and store it for the winter. If it wouldn't stick like that, it'd be nice to keep installed as another layer against the cold. But not if it's going to keep being in my way!
So I'll have to reorganize a bit of the storage shed so I can fit the screen door in there once it's out of the way. Once again, doing this all at subzero...
I have a window that won't close all the way unless I push it closed (using a broomstick to get both top and bottom). I thought I'd gotten it closed before winter but nope. I wondered why I was so cold in that room! I looked at the window and lordy, lordy, there's frost around the edges. Crap! So out into the night with a headlamp and a broomstick! Luckily I got it latched and it's much warmer in here now!
Normally I go around and teflon spray all the locks. I forgot this year so I still have to do that. Don't you hate it when you can't find that teeny tiny straw that goes in the sprayer?
I'm going to reorganize the house a little. I think I've moved furniture only once in ten years. It's time. My bed is next to an old, leaky window. Right now I've got a pillow pushed up against it to block the freezing airflow (and paper towel stuffed in every crevice of the sash and frame). Heck, my bed is four feet from the heater and even so, I'm still cold! So another project is to move my two giant bookcases and push my bed away from the window I'll call The Elbow Freezer.
Back in the dog yard, the cold is slowly but surely moving one of my fence posts away from the others. Unfortunately, it's the post the gate is hinged on. This means that probably by next week, my gate in the dog yard won't latch closed at all. Fixing this may entail dragging logs and/or giant fencing panels just to block it off. Okay, you know how men do those things. They just monster lift things and carry them across the yard (or five feet) and drop them. But I'm not a guy. I can move heavy things like frozen logs or fence panels, I can, but this is how I do it: grab it, lean back and use my center of gravity. Is it frozen to the ground? Yes. Okay, so I go get a pry bar and crack it off the ground. Grab said heavy thing, lean and pull. Move about six inches. Stop. Breathe. Lean and pull. repeat 26 or 48 times until it's where I want it.
Other step I forgot to mention: Go back inside and warm up your hands every fifteen minutes! Even with gloves! So sure, it might take an hour or more. Or I might get it half way and say, feck this, I'm cold and tired! I'll finish tomorrow! But it does get done!
With the bookcases same thing but instead, stand close and shove with hips and pull with arms and slide the furniture.
It takes a lot longer than the Hercules Superman Guy Way, but it still gets done!
Last, but not least at all, are the dogs. Ole needs to go to the poodle parlor to get The Works. He's got about four down jackets full of undercoat that can go. My house is a River of Fur that I can barely keep dammed. And I need to brush out all of Sofia's underfur too, which I can't do outside because it's too cold, but doing it inside is tricky if I don't want to drown in fur. I had her brushed out pretty well midsummer but dang it, fur is breaking out all over! So how will I do it? Verrrrry carefully!
