Cold Snap: January, 1991 Part 2

                                                Continued from yesterday:

        By this time my wife had caught her ride to work and I thought I should probably use the same tactic, so I walked up to the road to try to flag down a ride to work.  The sun was starting to shine over the trees and as I stood beside the road I could actually feel some warmth radiating from the sun, but after about 10 minutes without a single vehicle coming by, I gave up on a ride and when back down the driveway thinking I should give the car one more try.  I decided I should take the battery out of the car and put it into the house so it could warm it up, thinking maybe that might give it a bit of power.

I opened the hood of the car, and with a wrench in my gloved hand, I started to loosen the bolts holding the battery cables.  As I worked, I happened to look up to see our friend Linda go by in her car, heading for town.  “Damn,” I  thought, “I could have caught a ride with her,”  but that ship had already sailed.  

Two minutes later as I was lifting the battery from the car, I heard the sound of another car going by—my neighbor, who had evidently had more luck getting his car started than I had.  I had forgotten that he was still at home.

I was in a foul mood.  I took the battery into the warmth of our house, then called Teresa at work to see if they could get anyone there to come and pick me up.  Teresa told me they would send someone out in a truck to pick me up right away.

I quickly loaded the wood stove up for the day, and walked back up the driveway to the road to wait.  I waited, and then waited some more.  I waited and waited, standing with my face toward the sun.

In the extreme still cold, sound carries easily, and I could hear the sounds of tires on the highway which is a mile away.  It sounded as if the traffic was just behind our house.  I could also hear the sound of trees cracking from the frost.  I kept on waiting.

I watched some chickadees in an alder tree beside our driveway.  I started pacing around and did some toe lifts in an attempt to keep my feet warm.  Finally I heard a truck coming my way on the road in the direction of town.  Finally, I thought.  The first sight of the truck did not give me the thrill I was seeking.  I wasn’t a Forestry truck.

After a long 40 minutes of standing in the cold, the truck came.  Teresa had told Johnny the warehouse man to go out and pick Dave up.  Even though Johnny had already had a conversation with Dave S. that morning, he got in a truck and mistakenly drove 32 kilometers to Dunster (where Dave S. lived) to pick him up.  

    By the time Johnny had realized he was to pick me up, not Dave S, I was getting pretty cold, but I forgot my misery quickly once I was able to climb into the warm Forestry pickup and finally be on my way to work.

I was able to catch a ride home after work and upon arriving home I put the warm battery back into the car.  The block heater had been on all day, and with yet another prayer, I turned the ignition and amazingly the car started. 

I didn’t experience any other trouble starting the car for the remaining two weeks of the arctic weather.  I did constantly check the circuit breakers though.  I had unplugged the space heater under the house and just let the cold water in the bathroom just run constantly at a slow rate to prevent it from freezing up.  

Because of this incident, and other bad memories of things that happen in cold weather during other years, I automatically start feeling uneasy every time the weather bureau forecasts the approach frigid Arctic air.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Cold Snap: January, 1991

    The photo shows the plug for a car’s block heater.

Jan. 19, 1991:

We had just suffered through two weeks of continuous cold temperatures whose temperatures had ranged between -20F (-29C) and -33F (-36C).  It was pretty brutal.  It was so cold that someone in Prince George had reported that they saw a lawyer walking down the sidewalk with his hands in his own pockets.

The cold snap started out badly for me.  After I had gotten home on that first day when it started to go down to -20F, I noticed that the cold water tap in the bathroom was running rather sluggishly and was on the verge of freezing up.  (The bathroom water was a weak link in our water system and was always the first thing to freeze up.)  I figured I had better do something to prevent it, so I crawled down into the crawlspace under the house and plugged in an electric space heater, so that warm air could blow over the waterline leading to the tap.

I couldn’t think of anything else to do; I had the block heater in the car plugged in, I had armful of wood brought in and ready for the wood stove, the electric baseboard heaters in the house were turned up, so I went to bed dreading the thought of how cold it would be the next morning, but confident that everything would be okay.  

I was wrong.

The next morning when I forced myself out of bed to check the thermometer, I was depressed to discover it was -33F outside.  We got dressed as quickly as possible, then opened up the front of the wood stove to get that burning hotter.  I fixed a lunch for work, then decided that before I went out to the barn to feed the goats, I should check the car.  I thought I had better start the car to allow it to warm up before heading off to work.

I got in the car, turned the key and heard one of the most pitiful sounds that can befall a commuter on a cold morning:  ERRRrrrr.r..r…r,  then silence.

The engine wouldn’t turn over.  The block heater had been plugged in to keep the engine warm, so the only problem I could think of was that for some reason, electricity wasn’t getting to the block heater.

I went back inside the house and checked the electrical service box and discovered that the breaker leading to the car had been thrown.  I then realized that when I had plugged in the space heater under the house the night before, it had overloaded the electrical circuit which was on the same circuit as the car and it had thrown the circuit breaker.

I reset the breaker.

I decided I would just stay home from work a couple of hours to give the block heater time to warm up the engine.  During that time I fed the goats.  My wife, who was also wondering how she would get to work, called a couple of neighbors to bum a ride.  One of the neighbors was having a similar problem getting their car started, but she found a ride with one of our other neighbors.

At 9:00 I went out to try the car again.  I learned that and hour and a half is not sufficient time for a block heater to warm up an engine at -33F.  I tried again at 9:45 and got a similar result.  I was sure that at 10:00 I would be successful and almost was.  I turned the key and the engine almost caught, so I tried it again, again, it almost caught, again, again.

“Dammit, come on,” I said to myself gritting my teeth, but it was too late, the car battery had just used up all of the power it had.  I was snookered.

    I will conclude the story tomorrow.

Check out my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Bakerfield Bound by Chris and Herb

    On December 19th I blogged about “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” the album by the Byrds that opened my eyes to Country and Western Music.  The Byrds bass player was a guy named Chris Hillman.  After the Byrds he kept into the country vein and went on to help form The Flying Burrito Brothers, whose albums I also really liked.

    I sort of lost track of him during my move to Canada and living in faraway places where I lost access to music.  Now of course with the internet just about everything is open to me.  A few weeks ago I found myself wondering what Chris Hillman was up to, and started listening to some his older albums which he was on and that I had missed out on.  I came upon “Bakersfield Bound” by Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson.  The album knocked me out.

    The album itself is pretty old-1996, but to me it sounds about as fresh as it can be.  The songs are all ear worms that keep popping into my head.  The snappy electric guitar and steel guitar are wonderfully in your face and clean.  The harmonies are melodic and beautiful.  Okay, enough gushing.

    I realize this is probably not everyone’s cup of tea as far as music is concerned, but it sure hits me in the right spot.  If you liked “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and the Flying Burrito Bros, I pretty sure you will like “Bakersfield Bound”,  if you, like me, was unaware of it all these years.

    One of my favorite songs on the album is “It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad)”  You can hear it below, and just listen to those country guitars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUbn9IErQmA

Check out my photo-realistic paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Eating Off The Good Bits

    I spotted a Ruffed Grouse in the yard yesterday and watched it for a while.  Every time we have strong winds (which is often) small twigs and branches are torn off of the willow trees in our yard.  The grouse was picking off and eating the buds on the willow branches.  I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what grouse eat and was surprised that these small willow buds were part of their diet.

You can see my paintings at davidmarchant2.ca

1985: A Memorable New Year's Eve

My Most Memorable New Year's Eve

I recently came upon a letter I had written to my family telling about the adventurous New Year's Eve we had in 1985.  The letter wasn't dated but I was able to pin down the year using clues from the letter.  It was blowing and snowing on the night of December 31st, but we were primed for a party so we off we drove..

The New Year's celebration was being held at Jim and Abbie's, friends of ours whose house was located at the end of a kilometer long driveway which was flanked on both sides by flat open fields.  We drove through horizontal snow blitzing across the highway to get to their driveway and once there, we were confronted with a big piece of plywood with a warning hastily painted on it.  It said:  “4-WHEEL DRIVE ONLY, OTHERS FLASH THIER LIGHTS” 

We had wondered about the condition of their drift-prone driveway when we left our house, but figured it wouldn't be too bad.  The sign made us reconsider, and when we peered through the darkness and sideways blowing snow we could see that snow drifts were beginning to build across the driveway, but as far as I could tell the drive looked doable.  Besides, our Subaru was a four wheel drive so I put it into gear and we proceeded into blizzard.

Those first drifts we came to didn't present any problems, but the further we drove, the bigger the drifts got.  We were the first party to attempt the drive, so we were breaking trail, which slowed our progress.  About a third of the way down the drive we hit a drift that stopped us.  I opened the car door to check out our situation and discovered that the snow was up to the bottom of the door.  The snow was still blowing furiously.  My wife decided to proceed on foot to the house.

Fortunately soon after our sudden stop, John, another party-goer along with Jim, our host (I don't know why he was with John), arrived behind me in John's SUV.  They got out and manually pushed me through the drift, then followed me to the house.  Once there it was decided that maybe no one should be attempting the drive, because the chances were good they would be trapped by the snow and wouldn't be able to get back out after the party.   I decided to drive my car back to park it on the road, I turned around, as did John with his vehicle, and following him was Jim in his Land Rover, who had both four wheel drive plus chains on the tires.

Going back down the driveway didn’t present much of a problem since there were now tracks through the snow.  John and I parked our vehicles down by the road, and then climbed into Jim's Land Rover to be chauffeured back to the house.  During the first part of the party, everyone just stayed crowded around the big window eating snacks and watching four wheel drive vehicles fight their way up the driveway, only to get to the house, turn around and drive back to the road, to park. 

Two of the party goers did decide to keep their big 4x4 pickups at the house.  Jim, our host was kept busy for the first two hours of the party ferrying people back and forth from the road to the house in his Land Rover.

When most everyone had arrived, and there was no longer anything to see out of the window, the party began in earnest.  The music that was being played didn't inspire any dancing until finally the guy that was playing at being a DJ put on Dire Strait's “Money For Nothing”.  That drew everyone onto the dance floor.  A couple of other good songs kept them there, but the music again deteriorated back to uninspiring songs, and the dancing momentum started to deflate, so once again the DJ put on “Money For Nothing,” and the energy in the room again began to peak.  This sequence of music happened about three times during the evening, but everyone had lots of fun.

After we had ushered in 1986 and people began to tire, they put on their coats and boots, took a big breathe, and opened the door to face the weather, which had deteriorated to the point where Jim no longer used his Land Rover, but instead fired his snowmobile that towed a sled behind it. 

    The blizzard was really screaming across the field and driveway as Peter climbed on the snowmobile behind Jim, while Kathy and Harold huddled into positions on the sled.  Jim really had to really throttle up the snowmobile to move of all the weight of the passengers. He blasted through one drift after another, gunning his way through the blizzard to the road.

When he arrived at the cars, he turned around and discovered that Kathy and Harold had vanished from the sled.  He headed back to find them.  They had been thrown off when they hit a drift about half way back the driveway.  Even though Harold was just wearing regular shoes instead of boots, both he and Kathy opted for walking back to the cars rather than getting on the sled again.  Later another couple who had also taken the sled said that they could hardly breathe with all of the cold air and blowing snow in their faces.

We stayed at the party until 3:30 AM.  Then left the house with the final group.   We were able to hitch a ride in one of the big 4x4 pickups.  My wife got to ride in the cab, while I and two other tired partiers huddled back of the pickup.  By this time the drifting snow had again totally filled up the vehicle tracks on the driveway, and before we had gotten out of Jim and Abbie's yard, the truck was stopped dead by a drift.

With the help of us guys pushing the front of the truck, Tim, the driver, was able to back out of the drift, then we again took our positions in the bed of the truck.  Tim stomped on the gas pedal, and with the engine roaring we blasted through the drift, with those of us in the back hanging on for our lives.  Tim's truck exploded through several other drifts that stood in his way, until we again got bogged down several more times and had get out and push, but eventually we got out to the road and our cars.  We looked back through the darkness, amazed by the fury of the wind and snow that continued to scream across the fields and Jim and Abbie's driveway.

Our drive back home was peaceful and uneventful.  Ten minutes later when we finally arrived home we were surprised to  discover that there wasn't any blowing or drifting snow at our house.

    It had been a very memorable New Year's Eve.

Check out my photo-realistic paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

After Thirty-five Years of Storage

    About 35 years ago we took a shopping trip to Edmonton.   One of our main shopping destinations there was the Ikea store.  I don’t remember most of what we bought at the time, but I do remember two of our purchases:  a flat piece of stainless steel that could be used for a backsplash in the kitchen, and a stainless steel shelf. 

    The only reason I remember these two things was because we never did use them--instead we put  them aside, for the last 35 years.

    We just purchased a new stove.  Unlike our previous ranges which all had the upright back with all the displays, our new one, which I think is called a “slide-in” range, is completely flat across the top.  When we put the new stove in its place yesterday, and were dismayed to see that it left an extremely boring kitchen wall behind it.  Luckily, we still had that old piece of stainless steel backsplash and the shelf we had purchased in Edmonton all those many years ago. They were safely stored in the barn gathering dust.

    I took them out of their packaging and I rigged them up, then slid in our new stove into place.  What a difference it made.  All together they look pretty fancy.  

    During all those years of storage, those several times when I came across the backsplash and shelf in the barn, I was tempted to add them to our yard sale items, but fortunately never did.  Sometimes it pays to be a packrat.

Check out my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A "Touching" Photo

    Please excuse the pun in the title and my indulgence with my pets, but I was so taken the other day when both Lexi and Lucifer were on my bed and actually touching.  This is really a pretty amazing occurrence in our household.  Our previous dogs were pretty terrified of Lucifer, and for good reason.  She was pretty bossy and they kept their distance.

    Even though the two are touching in this photo, Lexi still seems to be a bit unsure.

Take a look at my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca