The view from the outhouse
Saturday November 20, 2021
Good morning friends. It was 11 below this morning for me and the boys first morning pilgrimage. They made it fairly quick. Teddy didn’t even wait for his chewbie just hurried upstairs and claimed his warm spot in our bed. At these temps it is a two dog night in the bed. If it gets any colder I will have to find another dog and make it a “Three Dog Night”. That seems to ring a bell.
The boys and I were just back in bed all snuggled in and warmed up when a friend called from Indiana. So it’s back out of bed, get my hearing aids in so my phone can Bluetooth to them, go downstairs so I don’t wake the woman, and call him back. We talked for a while and then I needed to find some information for another friend. All of a sudden, to use a term that I picked up over 50 years ago, “The pain done struck.” I need to go to the outhouse. Not worth the time or effort to go back upstairs to get my clothes on. I’ll just make a run for it. It wasn’t that bad when I was outside earlier. Slippers on and hit the path. Now I’m happy that the generator autostarted as advertised, just not happy with the timing. I have vents cut between the outhouse and the adjoining generator shed to share some heat and keep the toilet seat from icing up. Works fine most of the time. When the generator is running…not so much. The fan on the generator draws air from the outhouse when it is running and exhausts it through the radiator to the outside. This creates a vacuum in the outhouse. The replacement air comes from outside into the vent system and up through the hole in the toilet seat, at a pretty good velocity I may add. If you don’t understand windchill you need to come up in the winter and try this out. At -11 and whatever speed the wind through the hole is you have less than 30 seconds to get the crossword finished before frostbiting the family jewels. With great haste that task is completed and I return to the bed. I know I’ve mentioned this story before but I wanted to share it with any new readers.
We all went for a walk again on the island yesterday afternoon. I told you this was a bad thing to start. 1 1/2 miles in snow machine boots and bibs, 3 degrees. At least the wind was calm. I guess we will get in shape even if it kills us.
We noticed snow machine tracks in the slough yesterday. Not ours. Now I see posted that the first Iron Dogger made it to Skwentna yesterday. An annual Yentna River milestone. Hopefully not too much longer and I’ll get my chicken sandwich and root beer float at KFC.
I didn’t get around to the infrared camera yesterday. I may try today since it is Saturday and I usually take the weekends off. Only thing it is so cold there may not be any heat to photograph. I’ll let you know.
Not much else happening in the slough right now. I think we will just chill for now.
Stay safe, warm, and healthy my friends.
Thank you Lord for watching over us.
I’ll be in touch.
Blue skies!!
The View from the Outhouse 