When do you SHOVEL YOUR DRIVE when living in the wilderness?

When do you shovel your drive when living in the wilderness?

MAYBE THE QUESTION SHOULD BE, "WHY SHOVEL MY DRIVE?"

                                                                                                                                                               So it starts to snow, but no biggie, I have no desire to go anywhere. I'm sitting on

my couch, covered in a big fluffy blanket, with big fat wool socks on, a hot cup of cocoa in my hand. There is a big picture window with big fluffy flakes twirling down...

out of the sky.  There are birds flittering around my feeder just outside the window. There's a big plump red squirrel tackling the suet cake, circus style.  I feel quite content to do nothing and I'm not even feeling guilty about it!  I have

absolutely no desire to burst this bubble!

Hours later the snow is still falling in a steady stream and the inches are piling up outside. Eventually nature forces me out of the cabin on a small but significant hike to the outhouse, which is when it really dawns on me how deep the snow has become since morning.  I head back inside, careful to step in the same boot prints I made coming out to keep as much snow as possible  from cresting over the top of my boots on my return trip.

I arise the next morning to discover that Jack frost was up all night playing snow globe and there's an additional foot on top of the previous days snowfall.  I look at my truck, looking alot more like a ski hill than a 4x4 FORD, and give a brief but unsubstantial thought to the shovel leaning against the outhouse door... It looks like it has my name on it, but hard to tell from the window. Maybe it'll choose someone else if I ignore it long enough!  By noon I've decided that I need to at least shovel out the outhouse path and unbury the generator...just incase there's any emergency concerning either one.  I still give no thought to the driveway though. Still no desire to go anywhere. I do vaguely notice that I can just barely see the tops of the tires...

I've been busy baking, keeping warm and the snowflakes keep coming down. The sun is brightly shining through the veil of blizzardy snow flakes, so big they fall like waffles or kites from the sky wafting back and forth twirling as they fall. Its mesmerizing to watch them descend sparkling in the morning sunshine. How is it that the sun can shine so brightly with so many snowflakes crowding each other on their decent from the heavens?  Opening the door to throw out the dish water I notice a new accumulation of about 6 more inches!

I click on my cell phone to check the weather and the next 4 days show all snow. Hmmmm. Where did I see that shovel? I hear a noise... we rarely hear noise. Our road is remote and it ends at a very rarely traveled road. It sounds like a motor, it is! Its the county plow truck making a swath down our dead end trail, he courteously raises his blade by our drive so as not to plow more snow into the drive and we hear the thump of his blade come back down as he goes beyond the drive.  Its unusual for our trail to be plowed, so now we're worried...how MUCH snow are "they" expecting? At least the snow out on the road is now only 6" deep. (It is also a state snowmobile trail so they never plow the snow entirely off of it.) We didn't see the plow driver for a few more days, and the snow started really piling up.  Then we started to notice he went by every day, not sure why, but thought he might be wondering if he should stop in to check if everything's ok. (Folks do that up here). he must have hesitated to do so because smoke was always coming out of the chimney... but we did think that once the snow was over the bumpers of the 4x4 Pickup Truck it was probably "TIME TO SHOVEL THE DRIVEWAY"  So we and our 2 teenagers bundled up and got done digging around to find the shovels and had the drive cleared in an hour or so with the 4 of us making quick headway.  We must have relieved the plow driver because his passes by ceased til the next big storm. But I bet he was thinking..."WHEN DO YOU SHOVEL YOUR DRIVE?!"......
                                                                           

It's REALLY REALLY COLD Sometimes...in wilderness living, Is your shampoo frozen?

It's really, really, cold sometimes! In wilderness living is your shampoo frozen?

.....Since it's THAT time of year, right now I thought I'd share something about the Cold. 


In a remote cabin, cold has many definitions! It affects our lives in many unexpected ways! Cold is one of the things that make wilderness living "fun and exciting!"

1. You cannot wash your hair when its 28 degrees below zero...
...because your shampoo is frozen in the bottle!

2. You arrive at a laundry facility to find your liquid laundry detergent won't pour...It too, is frozen solid in the bottle. (It was sitting in the kitchen keeping the wood stove company, but apparently getting the "cold shoulder") So a special trip to the store has to be made to purchase "powdered" non-frozen detergent! 

3. An OUTHOUSE has moods! Really!...It gets the "chills," wind chills that is! Gives new meaning to frostbite on your cheeks!
     It offers 5 star hospitality.... a "cushioned" seat....about 6" of fresh "snowy" cushioning for the first morning visitor  after a blizzardy night. That'll make you yodel!!!!
    On dark nights with no moon, you close the door and sit in the dark wondering about the resident spiders and hope that they are sleeping.
    Unlike indoor bathrooms, The outhouse is not perfect for reading books....
     just....the thermometer! Gee, only -10 below Joe!!!

And my favorite... Never EVER put a 98.6 degree rear end on a 30 below zero outhouse seat....
.....remember that time you put your tongue on that cold metal object when you were a kid? Yeah. 

There's nothing romantic about calling at the top of your lungs to your mate who will hopefully hear you inside the cabin and bring some warm water to rescue your buns from being deep freeze welded to the seat!

4. FREEZER: Definition: The space between your bottom cupboard shelf and the floor. Technically, an electric freezer is WARMER on the inside than the air outside on many winter days.

5. REFRIDGERATOR: Definition: Any table space further away than 6 ft from the woodstove!

6. If you are melting snow/ice for water, it takes 10 gallons of snow to make 1 gallon of water. It takes 10 gallons of ice to make 8 or 9 gallons of water.

7. At temps below zero you need a window scraper inside to scrape ice off the window. Steaming water in a pot on the stove can cause Ice feathers to form so quickly on the windows that you can see them grow right before your eyes.

8. We discovered that our jug of "ANTI-FREEZE" (good to 50 degrees below zero), FREEZES in the jug at 21 degrees below zero....hmmmm.

9. Chainsaws have to "come in" to "warm up" before they'll run without freezing up while cutting up.

10. A human can go outside wearing thermal underwear, wool clothes, wool hats and mittens, a down coat, thinsulate boots, and get cold in about 15 minutes, a 1 oz chickadee wearing 1/6 oz of down and NO Boots can outlast you all winter! Ps. The birds actually lower their body temperature to burn fewer calories! Who knew?