Relative Cold

Ten below, Jesus, I've been duped. I have to wear a face-mask to go out and pee. The wind came back with a susurration. The stick trees act as tuning forks. My eyes start watering and freeze immediately. This, I realize, is the other side of the coin, what you get if you hole up on a ridge in southern Ohio. Most years, it's not that bad, you build a fire at the mouth of the cave and eat a lot of animal fat, but then a winter comes along that knocks you off your feet. Cold, as God intended. Wake up, mother-fucker, the party has just begun. Let's not talk about how slick the ice is, but how, if you slip and fall, you're dead meat. I did bundle up, walk down the driveway. The Jeep barely started, so I did drive to town, stopped briefly at the museum, to check on the boiler, and it was the motor, which was over-night shipped and should be installed tomorrow. Stopped at Kroger, for whiskey, cream, and a couple of the Bolthouse protein shakes (buy one, get one free). I still have three servings of fried rice, so I turn right around and go back home. This time of year, in a cold snap, all the birds eat sumac seed-heads. They pretty much leave them alone, the rest of the year, but when the going gets tough, there up plumped birds of every variety, pecking away. Even two robins that foolishly thought they could live here year-around and didn't fly south. The lake is lovely, frozen hard and covered with four inches of virgin snow. I had to stop at the spillway. I don't remember ever seeing it frozen solid. And the frozen wet-weather springs, coming out of the road-cuts, where ground water meets a solid cap of sandstone, are beautiful sculptures. I split two knots into four pieces that will heat my house, even under these conditions, for eight hours. I'm learning knots, there's a science to splitting them. First thing you do is store them for a couple of years, so you can see where the natural splits develop. I'm not much of a brute force kind of guy anymore. Not that I ever was, so I like any natural advantage, what you might call a student of high ground. I'm top-loading pieces of wood that I never thought I could burn in this stove. Excellent learning that, collided with a very cold winter, and my needing to clean out the woodshed. I should be able to get three cords stacked in there, in an easy rotation; and I can stash knots and crotches under the house, to age a couple of years. Locked down, frozen. When I get up and go outside to pee it's so cold it takes my breath away. Catch the fire perfectly, and I put on a poplar split, and a piece of red maple, and on top, a burl of rock maple. After midnight, and the house is almost comfortable, if you wear a bathrobe over several layers, and Linda's hat and fingerless gloves, two pair of socks and over-sized slippers. I look like a reject from a mental hospital, but I feel great. A couple of lung-fulls of very cold air, and I go back inside, for a wee dram, and a smoke, if I can roll one. If I can't roll a cigaret, I just go to bed. Down pallet on the floor. I did rather well, in that . It's too cold to be serious.