FEBRUARY 4, 2023 – Maybe winter’s getting to me. Yesterday I’d talked by phone with Beth about our narrowing drive and how our plow guy will have to round up a front-end loader to remove enough snow to accommodate the large gas truck that refills our propane tank. Otherwise, for the rest of the winter, we’ll have to rely on what supply is on hand. I told Beth I’d check the gas gauge in the morning.
It’s normally a simple task. You go to the large tank, parked close to the drive as it circles around behind the cabin. You lift the round, cover, and next to the input valve, you find the supply gauge. Today, however, the four-foot high tank was nowhere to be seen. Given the cumulative snowfall and the snowbank created by the plow, lots of shoveling would have to precede the simple task of reading the gauge.
After scaling the plow range, I shoveled down toward the tank. When I reached dead branches, I realized I was atop an old brush pile, not the tank. More shoveling, 15 feet to the north. The cap was frozen, and I chipped away at it gingerly, not wanting to damage the valve underneath or the line running out—sparking an explosion. For a moment I related the situation to the age-old sophomoric practice of putting a lighter to flatulence. That’s when I realized winter was getting the upper hand.
Eventually, I gained access to the gauge without producing a shock-and-awe headline for the local paper. Surprisingly, the needle was at 50% since the last refill in mid-December. If necessity requires, we’ll have enough supply until a long thaw allows the gas truck to get through.
Nevertheless, I tried to split more firewood for the wood-burning stove. Over the rest of my current stay here, I want to conserve gas by minimizing use of our regular furnace. Okay in theory; not so effective in practice. Not surprisingly, the oak burls that we’d set aside in early January were buried in snow and stuck together with ice. (Oh, the beauty of propane!) I managed to pry one burl loose and slam the splitting maul down enough times to produce the desired effect. I figure I’d consumed 1,000 calories processing wood-BTUs sufficient to heat the cabin for an hour.
But winter wasn’t yet done with me for the day. In fairness, I wasn’t done with it, either. I went skiing on the American Birkebeiner Trail—to celebrate the whole reason “we have” winter in the first place.
On my return to the Red Cabin, however, I managed to get my car stuck on our own drive, for the second time in exactly a month (see 1/4, 1/5 posts), albeit in a different place: 200 feet from the back of the cabin instead of the far end of the drive, a third of a mile away. After an hour of hard chopping and shoveling, the car remains captive to ice and snow and stuck in enough irony to clog an industrial-gauge snowblower. Perhaps on the hottest day of next summer I’ll be in a mood to explain all the ironic twists.
Tomorrow I’ll resume the mission to free the !@#$% car from winter’s clutches. Because of where the vehicle is positioned, there’s no room for a wrecker or “Grizzly John’s” tractor to get within a third of a mile of the “predicament.” In fact, there’s barely enough room for ideas—without lots more chopping and shoveling.
Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you’ve got connections with the air national guard, I’d appreciate an airdrop of about five tons of rock salt. Or alternatively, a few signs of spring.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
