Friday, January 30, 2004

Hold the ice Well, winter is here with a vengeance. Here in southern Wisconsin this morning, we have 10 below, with a wind chill of 30 below. It's a bit colder up north, where highs might reach our current low... Hey, that's getting close to Jack London's freezing-spit-before-it-hits-the-ground benchmark in "To Build a Fire." Time to hunker and throw another log on the fire. Going out in this weather require special precautions, but most people down here ignore them. When I lived in Bayfield County, I kept a pair of snowshoes, a sleeping bag, Space Blanket, La Crosse Iceman boots, nylon tow rope and snow shovel in the car all winter long. If we saw a car off the road, we stopped. Everybody else I knew did the same. We lived with winter in the form of snow-covered roads, high drifts, weeks of below-zero highs and more. Here in the South, most people see cold snaps like this one as a minor inconvenience. They hop into the car wearing loafers and maybe a scarf and drive to work, assuming the DOT will have salted the freeway if it has snowed so they can fly to work at 74 mph just as they do in summer. I no longer carry a sleeping bag or snowshoes, but I do keep warm boots, gloves & hat in the car. A cell phone makes us feel safer than in the past, but it's nice to be able to stay warm while waiting for help to arrive. On January 19, Dave Richey posted a piece on his weblog about a winter mishap that he should have been able to avoid. He and a friend almost died after seven hours in a blizzard while on a simple errand they thought would take a few minutes. I plan to ski this afternoon, as I did a couple days ago, but I'll wear a face mask and put air-activated foot-warmers in both socks and gloves. The foot-warmers create more heat than hand-warmers and are not recommended for bare-skin contact. At this temperature, they work fine in gloves. This winter, I got all my wood split and stacked before January, and I bought a roof rake to pull snow off the lower part of the roof so I don't have to climb up there to prevent ice dams. I'm getting too old for walking on an icy roof, even with ice-creepers on my boots. The weather man says it will be a balmy 20 above by Sunday. Heck, that will feel like summer! Later... 8:17:51 AM    comment []