Putting an Expired Credit Card to Good Use!

As we were heading into the big city of Boston for the weekend, I figured it might be time to trade in those mukluks, ski jacket, and ratty jeans for something a bit 'unwoodslike'. I didn't go so far as to pack my spiked heels (which I don't own incidentally) but I did decide to don my wool jacket and somewhat more stylish black boots ... big mistake! The problem was not the actual choice of clothes but rather that I am a total creature of habit. I had prepared dinner for the ride and had everything ready to go. Caroline and I headed out ... she to pack the sled with cooler, duffle bags, and bookbags ... I to manage the snowmobile. This entails not only taking off the cover and managing to get the thing started (which usually takes a mere 20 or 30 pulls ... for me) but also lifting the thing in order to 'unstick' it from the snow and ice. You can imagine how my back has been feeling lately. Mission accomplished, Caroline attached the sled to the hitch, I wedged my purse between my legs, and we were off ... for the first time.

We arrived at the parking lot unscathed. I hopped off the snowmobile, reached for the truck keys, and ... realized that I was not wearing my ski jacket ... the one that not only contained the truck and house keys, but also the cell phone! Not a problem as we are smart enough to have a spare key hooked on a nail under the porch at home. Caroline unhooked the sled from the hitch, I tossed her my purse, and headed back for the house where the ski jacket was hanging on another nail ... this one in the basement. I arrived, jumped off the machine, reached for the key and came up ... empty! You see this is also the key that Garrick uses to get into the house if we are not home after school. Unfortunately, he is not a creature of habit and not only did he not replace the key, he has no idea where he put it. Mind you, it is still -18 F and I am starting to get just a little bit worried.

I jumped back on the snowmobile with one last hope ... that I had absentmindedly put both keys and phone into my purse that morning. As I drove out for the second time, I was beginning to panic. I tried to determine what options I had. Luckily, George and Anne were at home as their trucks were still in the parking lot; so I figured we could always go there if we needed to get warm. Then I figured, I could break a window to get into the house but this would obviously curtail our trip to Boston as I couldn't leave a house with a broken window and below zero temperatures for an entire weekend. When I arrived at the parking lot, I scrambled frantically in my purse and once again came up empty!

Caroline and I rode back in again. She checked the basement windows while I checked those on the first floor. All were locked. While Garrick had not left the key out, he had managed to forget to put the hatchet away ... at least I would have something to break the window with if need be. We were starting to get cold and I figured we had about five minutes before we would have to leave for George and Anne's place. Then I remembered how once when I was about Caroline's age, my father had used a credit card to open a door. I rummaged in my wallet and found the expired LL Bean card that I had yet to cut up and dispose of. I tried the back door first but it wouldn't work as Paul had tightened the striker plate over Thanksgiving to reduce the gap between the door and the frame. My last hope was the lakeside door ... it worked. We were in! And the only reason it worked was because we had opened and closed it so many times while bringing in the wet wood to the basement to dry. Paul had remarked at Christmas time that he needed to fix the gap on that door ... thank goodness he didn't!

I made a quick phone call to the school to make sure Garrick didn't get on the bus and we were on our way ... for the third and final time.

I wish I could say that the rest of the weekend went smoothly...

Boston was cold (no shorts for me) and snowy. Something to be expected in January I guess! On Sunday we left at 12:30 for home as it was snowing quite heavily. We arrived home at 9:30 pm after one of the worst drives of my life. We drove the entire 280 miles at a speed somewhere between 35 and 45 mph. As Paul told someone yesterday when they asked when we would be getting together again, "Karyn said, 'You know where I live if you want to find us.'" And, Caroline has been sick as a dog since we arrived back. So we aren't headed for Boston anytime soon.

While we arrived home to more seasonal temperatures, we have been promised that another Arctic Cold front is approaching this weekend and we can expect temperatures to be in the -20 F to -15 F range. Fire tending is looking awfully promising this weekend!

Karyn

OF.L

Can you say cold?

At around 8:15 Wednesday night the phone rang. It was the neighbor ... the one that lives five miles down the road. Caroline picked it up and I heard her say, "Math Team practice?" Garrick then piped in, "Oh, yeah we have Math Team practice in the morning." Colby, whose mother was smart enough not to want to get up at 5:45 am to drive to Greenville, needed a ride. Math Team practice starts at 7:15 so that means we have to be out of the house by 6:15 to get the snowmobile going ... now using the pull start as the aluminum shaft on the electric start busted last week, not because of my fabulous jump but because someone continued to turn the key after the machine was already started, and the only way to get it fixed is to ride it the 20 miles to Greenville on the ITS trail or borrow a trailer, from the mechanic in Greenville, and buy a new ball for our hitch as our current one is 1 7/8" and the mechanic's trailer goes on a 2" ball, so we have resorted to using the pull start for now ... ride out to the truck and get that going for ten minutes to warm it up and then drive the almost 20 miles south to school, with a slight detour to The Wilson's Camps where Colby, aged 12, was having his morning coffee while waiting for his ride. The temperature when we left the house was -17.3 F, before windchill. Most places across the country were cancelling school ... we were still having Math Team practice at 7:15 am!

That afternoon, we had yet another opportunity to venture out as Thursday is Open Gym day in Rockwood. By 2:30, the temperature had risen to a balmy -3.8 F. As we hopped off the snowmobile and into the truck, Caroline remarked, "Wow, it feels really warm now, almost like it's 20!" Guess it is all relative.

When we climbed into bed last night, the temperature was already lower than it had been that morning ... -17.8F. When I crawled out of bed at 3 am to feed the fire and glanced at the thermometer it read ... OF.L! Now I don't know how exactly you'd pronounce that but I think it would come pretty close to AWFUL!!! Apparently, digital thermometers cut out at around 20 below. When I crawled out of bed at 6:15 to start the day, the thermometer still read OW.L. Unfortunately, I was again not awoken by the phone ringing with the recorded message from my computer friend Mrs. Brown announcing that school was closed ... or at least delayed. So Garrick and I got ready. Fortunately, the snowmobile started up and when I turned the truck on to get it warmed up out at the bus stop, it did start ... although it really didn't want to. George and Millie showed up just before the bus arrived. (I think they must have some sort of arrangement with the bus driver as they always seem to get to the bus stop 'just in time'.) When I asked George how cold it was he said that his thermometer read -35 F!!! When I mentioned that my thermometer had shut down, he said, "Oh, so you must have a digital thermometer." Guess I'm not in the know! He also mentioned that the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales converge again at -40 so for those of you across the ocean who don't use that crazy Fahrenheit scale, you can still appreciate exactly how cold it is.

Well we're off to Boston for the weekend to meet Paul (and warm up ... I'm even thinking of throwing in a pair of shorts). The thermometer has finally recovered ... it now reads -18 F!

Hope you're spending your weekend somewhere warm too -

Karyn

Footnote

Boy do I owe Garrick an apology ...

Went out to meet the bus this afternoon. I was a little late, and had forgotten the shovel, but the trail was packed down fairly well so I upped the speed a bit from this morning. Garrick was waiting for me just inside the gate (which incidentally has not yet been closed and locked in spite of the snow) and suggested that I turn around inside the gate as the snow plow had pushed a mound of snow up against the end of the trail. Normally, we have been riding right out to the parking lot. (Normally, I later learned, someone had been shoveling away the snow plow pile.) I took a quick look and thought I could take it. So, with Garrick on the back, we flew over the bank and landed safely on the other side, in the parking area. Boy was I feeling good ... too good. On the way back in, I gunned it and ... after flying through the air ... landed us both in the snow ... the very deep snow. Garrick thought we could drive it out so I gunned it again and just got us more stuck! He yelled, "You're not supposed to gun it. You have to ease it out! And you weren't supposed to gun it over the snow bank either." Fortunately, he knows more about the thing than I do and he was able to get us back on the track again ... and, he was gracious enough to let me drive the rest of the way home.

Bet you wish I had the camera for that one!

Karyn

Not Even a One Hour Delay???

Hope everyone had a good holiday break. Ours was somewhat uneventful, (sounded like a good excuse for being a bit behind with my blogs) but good. We managed to make one trip out of the big woods ... all the way to Connecticut ... for New Year's Eve. Between the weather and the frequent shopping excursions, it took us 11 and a half hours to get there but it was worth the agony. It was a gathering of the old college crowd from Lehigh so I am sure you can imagine the antics of the night. The Jello shots and beer pong (played on the makeshift kitchen island 'court') lead to a 2 am Polar Bear Plunge into the ocean followed by a group gathering in the steam shower ... limiting myself to only one Jello shot, I had the wherewithal to decline those entertaining endeavors. Unfortunately, I was not the only spectator, so next year's gathering will most likely be sans kids!

The rest of the vacation was somewhat relaxing; we had very little precipitation so there was no shoveling or packing down the trail ... just the usual ... moving wood. Even the squirrels have been cooperating; twice a day I bring them their own special stash of sunflower seeds and they no longer attempt to traverse the wire to the bird feeder. They now have so much food that yesterday I actually caught sight of one of them taking seeds from the supply piles and burying them in various locations in the yard ... in case I go away???

As annoying as they are, they seem to be quite smart. Upon returning from the bus stop yesterday and tending to my usual morning chores, I looked out the window to find not one, but six squirrels scurrying around the feeding area. Why? There was a storm moving in and they knew it instinctively. Hmmm ... maybe there is a way to eliminate all that wasted time listening to those inaccurate meteorologists from now on.

Weren't those squirrels dead on (no hidden meaning intended)! The snow started by about 8 am and continued for almost 24 hours. By the time I had to go out to get Garrick from the bus, we had at least six inches of the fluffy stuff and I was starting to get anxious about the 'packing down of the trail', being that I had never actually had to do this before. But, 'I did great!' Wish Garrick could have said the same on the ride home! I'm not sure how it was that he got to drive, but, when we were a tenth of a mile from the camp, he slid off the trail and we sunk. You'd be surprised how far a 550 pound machine can sink in about 30 inches of snow (about 29 inches for those of you who are having a hard time doing the math). It only took about a half hour for us to dig out, tramp down, and get that thing out of there ... who needs a walking group for exercise! Once home, I sent Garrick out to do the rest of the packing down, shovel in hand so to speak. As the neighbors haven't yet returned from their jaunt to Germany, Garrick went out to run down their section of the road and then came home to work on our turn around and the yard. The snow dissipated for a while after that and of course picked up again just as we were getting ready to retire for the evening. So, at 9:45 pm, Garrick set out one more time to work the section from our house to the main road.

You can imagine my disbelief when I awoke this morning at 6:04 am to the incessant beeping of Garrick's alarm clock, not the 6 am phone call from my friend, the school principal recording, canceling school. I jumped out of bed, looked out the window to see snow flakes falling by the light of the moon, picked up the phone to make sure it wasn't dead, and ran downstairs to listen to the radio. Not even a one hour delay!!! We had gotten ten inches of snow, it was still snowing, and there wasn't even a one hour delay!!!

As we had to pack down the trail on the way to the bus, I knew we had to get moving. I grabbed the ash bucket and tramped out in the dark, down the partially shoveled path, to dump yesterday's ashes. Then, I put the coals into the empty ash bucket and started up the fire. I threw some breakfast at Garrick and started baking the oatmeal custard that Caroline and I would be having when I got back, in an hour. Hurriedly, I put on my snow pants, my extra socks, my mukluks (yes, I did get my very own mukluks for Christmas), my balaclava, my jacket, my snowmobile helmet, my glove liners, and my gloves (mind you I have to dress like this EVERY time I go somewhere) and headed out to the snowmobile, truck keys and cell phone in my securely-zipped pocket. I let Garrick drive ... after I warned him that if he didn't drive slowly and sunk the sled and missed the bus, I would be very angry ... and we managed to make it out in fifteen minutes, almost three times as long as when the trail is well 'groomed'. We then went through the usual routine ... warming up the truck, clearing the snow off, and shoveling out before Skip arrived.

I headed for home with a slight detour down the North Road, a mile each way, to once again pack down the trail for the neighbors as they are expected to arrive back today. Having not riden a sled down that way as of yet, I was a bit hesitant to go, not knowing what obstacles I may encounter and more importantly, not knowing the turn-around situation. To turn around a snowmobile, you need a lot more room than one would expect, and if you don't stay on the section that has been previously packed down ... you sink. Well, I made it and managed to survive the turn around. Their turn around is actually a bit easier than ours ... we go around the house and since the house is on a bit of a mound, there is a slope that needs to be navigated very carefully or ... the sled tips and the riders end up sunk. My mother can attest to that as Paul had the courtesy of tossing her off the sled upon her arrival here over the holidays. And, on her second snowmobile ride, the one she took on her way out, he tossed her again. I guess Garrick comes by his operating skills honestly!

Well, the snow has finally stopped and the squirrels have yet to appear at the feeding station this morning. I guess that means we're not in for any more snow today ... or perhaps they are still sleeping off yesterday's banquet (or maybe that one squirrel is still trying to figure out where he put all those sunflower seeds). I suppose that means it's time for me to get out there and start moving some more of that snow. Heavy lifting but beautiful!

Karyn