-32/Thirty below zero

February 9, 2021 - Tuesday morning

-32/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

The next person that mentions global warming, well... I may chase him down the road with an icicle in hand.

Naw, that probably wouldn't happen. I might break a perfectly good icicle.

From working outside to spending time in front of the wood stove playing cards, the frigid air affects everything we do. 

Oh to be young again. Ashley sent along pictures of Piper and Brielle, both having fun wearing their boots on the wrong feet. Wouldn't it be nice to never grow up, to be silly simply because it feels good?

Piper

Brielle

I don't mind admitting, I'm a little jealous.

I took my usual walk Monday morning. The thermometer was registering a rather balmy -19 and the wind was light. The biggest problem was how to keep my face from freezing. Having been frostbitten more times than I can count, parts quickly turn hard and white after being exposed for more than a minute or two.

I was just a mile away from home when I began fantasizing about how good a big, old fashioned breakfast would taste. 

As Mom used to say when I was little, "A boy like you needs a good, stick-to-your-ribs, breakfast so you can go to school and do well."

With that, she'd make sure I had a daily breakfast of toast and cereal and often, bacon and eggs. Dad occasionally delighted in flipping pancakes on a weekend morning.

Well, everyone knows that Mom and Dad were always right, (just ask Barb, my sister) so I decided to follow their advice Monday morning. I'm a boy and I was planning on playing outside later in the day.

Let me make sure I have this formula right.

Mom = bacon and eggs

Dad = pancakes

Mom + Dad = bacon and eggs AND pancakes, all drenched in homemade maple syrup.

After all, doesn't a good son try to please his parents? 

Sargie and I took our ride to town, stopping to shop for a few groceries along the way. Our local grocery features a sale every Monday on milk for $1.99 a gallon. Picking up a couple of gallons is a no brainer for us.

Coming up "the hill" in Crystal Falls is always impressive. Yesterday made it even more so with the large snowblower discharging snow into a large dump truck.

There's no room for the berms of snow to be deposited along the sides of the main street, so it's plowed into the center then blown into a large truck to be dumped elsewhere.

Back home and energized by Mom and Dad's secret formula breakfast for day-long energy, I started the snowblower and made a path out to the garden house. Between heavy snowfall and drifting, I found myself crawling along in over three feet of snow.

I hope to finish wiring the garden house over the next several days which, no doubt, will require making several trips back and forth to the shop. Wading in knee deep snow makes the job that much harder, plus, who wants to leave a heated building to walk out into below zero weather for a pair of forgotten wire snips or an electrical wire nut?

I forgot Hambone was helping me do the wiring last fall. First thing I have to do is clear away some of his "projects" that he was making from the leftovers in my scrap wood box.

I'm also having to chip a small hole daily over the circulating pump in the pond to let the gasses escape. Having a clean path makes that job that much quicker.

Still energized by Mom and Dad's secret breakfast formula, I assembled the Minnesnowta snow removal tool and took the snow from the roof of the front porch.

Even with heavy down mittens, my hands soon became too cold and stiff to work. The aluminum handle is a great conductor of cold, regardless how many down feathers are between it and my fingers.

I finally called it quits and came inside. Thoroughly frozen through, I was happy to sit in front of the wood stove and let Sargie beat me in a game of Rummy. 

Last night was spent thumbing through the 2021 Appalachian Trail Guide that arrived in yesterday's mail. I'm trying to coordinate cities, ophthalmologists, times, and places. Of course, anyone who's done any hiking at all knows the best made plans can quickly go awry. Still, it's an exercise that puts me on the trail, mentally, if not physically.

I was told the other day that I'm obsessing over the trail. Really? You think? Just because your eyes glaze over and you've begun skipping the paragraphs when I write about the trail doesn't mean I don't enjoy writing them.

Hey, this is a one time shot for me, probably the last in this lifetime I'll get to experience a truly huge physical/athletic challenge. I figure at age seventy, I'll have about an 8 percent chance of actually finishing the trail. 

Only fifty hikers, age seventy or over, have done it before. 

Throw in questionable vision and those odds are greatly reduced. Still, as Mom and Dad used to say (don't you get tired of Mom and Dad quotes?) "If you're going to do something, do it right."

I'm going in with the intention of being hiker number 51 over the age of seventy to successfully complete the AT.

Besides, as I've often said, half the fun of going is getting there.

Today looks to be much the same as yesterday minus the pancakes, bacon, and eggs. The sun is peeking over the spruce trees which means it time to strap on the hikers and listen to the crunch of snow as the miles roll under my feet.

I'll warm up the garden house later and hope to make some progress with the wiring. The screen around the top of the flue on the living room roof needs to be cleaned. 

I don't mind stepping off an extension ladder onto a snow covered metal roof. It's hitting the ground below that takes the fun out of it. 

And last but not least, I should crawl up onto the garage roof, also metal, and begin that process of removing snow. The depth of eighteen inches to two feet isn't bad. It's when another foot or two of wet, heavy, snow falls on top of what's already there that makes it worrisome.

Time to get the day started. None of the above is going to happen by itself.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Deer tend to travel in the same paths through deep snow which makes them easy prey for coyotes and wolves.