This is what I’m doing tonight
We got a quadruple load of wood today. We’re expecting high winds and heavy rain tonight. My job is to check the CCTV from time to time to make sure the tarp hasn’t blown off. I’m just about up to it.
It dipped into the low twenties last night. Very unusual here – it does it maybe once or twice per Winter, if at all. I had to boil a kettle to unfreeze the chickens’ water this morning.
That wouldn’t be impressive in Rhode Island, but a 500 year old house on the shores of the English Channel gets cold. I mean, really cold. I don’t know what the insulation R-value of wattle and daub is, but it can’t be good.
No power on earth could drive me out of this comfy chair with my two (2!) hot water bottles and my large fat cat.
Dead Pool tomorrow! Be here, but bring your own hot water bottle!
Posted: January 6th, 2022 under badger house, personal.
Comments: 13
Comments
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 6, 2022, 7:57 pm
Yeah, I waited till it went up into the mid 40s to take the Christmas lights down. So I hears ya.
Good that I did, we’re back down to a daytime high of 38 or so.
No way I was going up and down an 18 foot ladder on a freezin ass cold day, I has enough of that Arthur-itis stuff in my hands as it is.
Plus my experience with falling in cold weather says it hurts way MORE when it’s cold, and frozen beer doesn’t take the edge off.
Brrrrrrrrr. Think I’ll go have a nice hot cuppa something I can pour whisky into.
Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: January 6, 2022, 9:10 pm
What is that vertical glazed ceramic-looking thing just off to the right there?
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: January 6, 2022, 11:47 pm
The wind has made a mess here. In early December a 70 mph wind torqued and flattened our new greenhouse. It was thoroughly tied down, so it couldn’t fly up like a box kite, but the clear poly panels landed all over the neighborhood. JavaMan found all but three panels. He took it all apart and has stored all the pieces/parts while we research and build a better structure.
Now my surviving lavender plants are inside one of the raised beds, covered in felt baskets and topped with a blue tarp, clamped to the wooden frame that makes the raised bed. It was 7 degrees this morning with 40 mph wind. Sigh. It’s always windy here, but it’s usually early March before the wind becomes so dangerous and costly. And it’s dry dry dry. No rain in almost 90 days.
Comment from dissent555
Time: January 7, 2022, 12:15 am
‘sposed to be around 0 deg F by tomorrow morning.
I’m with durnedyank on the whiskey thing.
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: January 7, 2022, 12:41 am
@durnedyankee and dissent555: You are so right.
I do miss my hot toddies. JavaSon left a bottle of rye here, at Christmas. That ought to work.
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: January 7, 2022, 1:00 am
@ExpressoBold — I’m curious, too, about that odd object on the right. My best guess right now is that it is a discarded Christmas tree that was used as a wounded “patient” by a gaggle of Girl Guides working on their First Aid badges, and now sporting slings, splints, and gauze bandages.
I don’t have much confidence in that guess, though.
p.s. (edit) — @Deborah HH — Rye whiskey not only works for hot toddies, in my book it is the preferred whiskey for them. Just add lemon, honey, and heat!
p.p.s. — I refer to real rye whiskey, and not that icky Canadian stuff blended with cheap sherry.
Comment from Armybrat
Time: January 7, 2022, 1:59 am
It was a balmy 77 in sunny south desantis land today. If it make y’all feel any better, I did turn the pool heater on today.
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: January 7, 2022, 10:39 am
Florida, again.
Jeez AB! You have the dicks, and Desantis, and we have cold, and Cruz.
But your comment made me 😃
@Uncle Al, that’s the recipe for punch that I learned from Makem & the Clancy boys, hold one…sugar in theirs, not honey.
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: January 7, 2022, 1:50 pm
When I first went to Japan in my young and poor days, I shared a little, and I do mean little, imitation of a house in a neighborhood just outside Yokota Air Base.
It was in that Post-War-Slapped-Together-Hovel little villa that I learned that the Japanese word for insulation, pronounced phonetically, is “ain’t-got-none”. Worse, I was sleeping on a futon, because it was cool, and cheaper than a real bed by far. However, the futon turned out to be way too cool, and I am not speaking figuratively here. I improved things a bit by getting off the floor- I liberated a few pallets from somewhere forgotten and repurposed them in an early attempt to save the planet (and my cold, cold ass) by recycling them into a “bed platform” which helped a little, and an electric blanket which help a lot more but not enough. What did the trick though was a tip from a “visitor” who, staying the night with me, taught me that the warmest blanket ( electric blanket here) goes under you- not on top. A mattress is just a big lump of cold for your body to heat, and the whole earth (if you’re on a futon on the floor) is a even bigger lump to heat. Putting the warm blanket underneath changed everything ( after all, heat rises) , and I slept warm and toasty ever after.
I really recommend trying this, especially if you have an electric blanket. To show ArmyBrat that I am totally not very jealous of her floating in a pool while the rest of us freeze, I offer the suggestion that if your pool is too cool you can put your electric blanket on your damn pool float and turn it on. Opps, ah, scratch that…. I AM totally not jealous. However, I am serious, Wease, you in particular should try this trick. Much better than a hot water bottle which can only warm up strategically chosen spots.
Comment from ron
Time: January 7, 2022, 3:09 pm
armybrat, please pick biden in next deadpool.
you are on a winning streak.
time for him to go
Comment from Armybrat
Time: January 7, 2022, 5:24 pm
@ron…oh HELL NO! As bad as that doddering senile imbecile is Heels Up Harris (aka Throatus) would be infinitely worse!
Comment from BJM
Time: January 9, 2022, 3:58 am
@Al..it ain’t an Old Fashion if it ain’t made with rye. I like Dad’s Hat for cocktails and Balcones is what I’m sippin’ nowadays. However, I prefer cognac for hot toddies or a dark rum.
Some Veg…OMG!!! What year? I lived in Fussa in ’67. We were poorer than church mice but it was one of best years of our life. The Spousal Unit commandeered a bunk to get us off the ground and some parachute silk. I can’t believe we both slept in that narrow bed, but wrapped in silk and each other, cold we weren’t.
We don’t need no stinkin’ heated blankets or hot water bottles we have 3 large dogs…it gets too hot and we have to kick ’em off.
Comment from Cantharkmycry
Time: January 9, 2022, 4:37 pm
BJM:
I like Old Overholt. There is exactly one liquor store in town that carries it–and I’ve never had the nerve to ask who, other than me, actually buys it. (upstate New York, y’know).
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