No Place Quite Like Home

I'm back! Vacation on Whidbey was lovely - Two weeks of snuggling by the fire while the rain poured down outside followed by two weeks of beautiful sunny hikes on the beach and visits to family and a few friends around the area. I find I can't visit as many people as I hope to while there. To my dear Seattle area friends I did not visit: I am sorry, and I'll try to get to see you next time.

When I got back to the cabin, the temperature outside was minus 7 degrees and there was too much snow on the ground to drive to the house. By the time I parked the truck and hiked in to the house it was getting pretty late and I was tired. So imagine my dismay to find the interior of the cabin at a frosty minus 20 degrees! It took all night to get it warmed up to 40 degrees, then half of the next morning to get it to a comfy 70.

Once the interior temperature reached 0 degrees, I decided to pretend I was winter camping and go to bed with all my clothes on and twice as many covers as usual. The bed was literally frozen and I had to heat bricks in the cookstove and wrap them in towels and put them in the bed to thaw it out enough to sleep in it. It would have been warmer to sleep in the truck!

Eight bottles of wine froze and pushed out their corks, resulting in a flood of wine when the house warmed up. A champagne bottle exploded and I found pieces of it all over. Half a dozen bottles of beer froze solid, but did not break. It was not quite cold enough to freeze the hard liquor. I did not leave any non-alcoholic bottled drinks in the house, because I knew they would freeze.

I had poured antifreeze ("protects down to -20 deg!") in all the drain traps, but the toilet was frozen solid anyway. Fortunately, it didn't crack. I'm told it got down to -27 in Livingston, so I figure it was probably -30 for at least two days here. Cold enough to freeze EVERYTHING

The next day I went to turn the water back on and nothing came out. Oh, no. It turns out that when I drained the pipes there were a few places where the pipes didn't completely drain. The most serious place was where the pipe comes through the bathhouse wall from the ground under the insulation structure. The bathhouse was so cold for so long that the bit of water left in that part of the pipe had frozen and plugged it. It is now thawed (fortunately it does not seem to have cracked), so there is a water supply, but we are still working on a couple of other problems before the new indoor pipes are all functioning again. I guess we need to get an air compressor and use it to blow out the pipes next time we leave. Last year this didn't happen to these same pipes, but then last year it waited until we were here with the heat going before it got down to minus 25. I guess there were some real advantages to not having running water here in the past.

Meanwhile, Tom came to spend the next few weeks here with me. He brought a surprise. In Richland where he is working, he is renting a fully furnished house while the owners are traveling for a year. Part of the deal is that he is caring for their cat, Khufu. Well, the neighbor lady who normally takes care of the cat when Tom leaves was gone every time he tried to contact her, so he brought Khufu with him to Montana. This cat is quite a character. A pampered, sheltered, neurotic, energetic Abysinnian who is not allowed outside and hates to ride in the car. After yowling for four hours during the drive here, he apparently calmed down and only screamed when a big truck passed. By the time they reached Butte, he settled down and seemed quite comfortable for the rest of the ride. Then, when they got here, I met them down at the parking area and the poor cat had to ride on the snowmobile up to the house. Tom put him in a backpack with only his head sticking out and hugged him to his chest while we rode up the hill. He actually stayed quite still throughout the ordeal, although he voiced his complaints regularly. Finally, we got him into the warm house and gave him some treats to eat and he's been happily investigating every inch of the house ever since. He seems quite happy here, especially when he perches on the top stair where he can watch all movement on the first floor. I'm hoping any mice that manage to get into the house while he's here will trigger his hunting instinct.
Here's a fairly bad picture of Khufu at home in Richland. (my camera got too cold and the battery was drained so until it is recharged, no new pictures)
Tom is staying until New Year's which is quite a treat for both of us, and possibly also for Khufu now that he's recovered from his adventures getting here. The temperatures have warmed up to well above zero, and I find that 20 degrees feels quite tropical after The Night of the Frozen House. We're relaxing and enjoying the snug, warm house while it snows outside.