DECEMBER 17, 2022 – When heavy snow flocks the woods, beauty reigns. But nature doesn’t care that its mantle blocks our satellite dish and thus, internet connectivity, so we can’t check your temperature gauge remotely. Nor does nature care about unleashing 30 to 40 mph winds and blowing down ice- and snow-laden trees onto power lines and across roadways.
This morning Beth and I awoke to a text from her nephew, Chad. “Are you at the cabin?” it read.
“Sounds like power was out. May need assistance. Just making contingency plans.” Chad’s family owns a cabin on the western shore of Grindstone.
I hopped online to check the heat status of our own cabin. It showed “58F,” but the last reading had been 2 p.m. Wednesday. Since then, no reading was available.
I called our closest neighbor, “Grizzly John” but got voicemail; called Steve, his closest neighbor on the other side and again, got voicemail. Worry jogged my memory. Last October Steve had sent me the phone number of “Tim the Groomer,” Chad’s next door neighbor and proud owner of a high-end x-c ski trail groomer.
I found Tim’s number and called. He answered—Bingo. I asked if he was at his cabin (his permanent residence is in the Twin Cities). He was—Bingo again.
Every winter (except last winter), when I peer out our lakeside windows and see Tim in his machine “laying track” on the frozen lake, I fly out the door, through the snow and onto the lake to hail the “Groomer.” He stops and we chat. His perfectly laid ski-skating track stretches for several kilometers along the northwest shore of the lake. Though Tim’s wife is an avid skier, he doesn’t ski. But he loves to drive his groomer.
Tim’s a great guy, with a quick wit and a big heart. And when you’re in a jam, he doesn’t hesitate to help out—as he did today.
He described the week’s storm sequence: rain, then freezing temps, followed by 18 inches of snow. Tim was surviving with a generator and some sketchy kerosene heaters. He had to keep feeding fuel to keep everything running.
Without hesitation, he volunteered to drive over in his pickup, navigate down our drive and drain our pipes down to the water heater and pressure tank in the cabin crawl space. Upon reaching our backdoor, Tim called on Facetime. He looked well outfitted in Northwoods winter garb, including an orange hunting cap with a headlight.
I guided him through the multi-step process of shutting off one valve and opening another; locating a gallon jug of anti-freeze for the sink traps. In November, I hadn’t drained the plumbing system (we leave the furnace on but thermostat turned down). I’d only shut off the pump and water heater at the main switchboard. With MINUS 20F forecast for Tuesday and Jump River Electric Co-op’s recorded message that outages might continue for days, I didn’t want busted water pipes inside our walls. We’d have to hope that power and heat would be restored before the crawl space froze.
At 5:00, we learned that power to the area had been restored. When nature goes rogue and ugly, Tim in his orange hunting cap with headlamp illuminating our crawl space . . . is a beautiful sight.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
