Skipped a day

There should’ve been a new blog post here yesterday. I had one mostly written, in fact — all it needed was a few photos. But when I sat down at my computer around 7pm CST to edit a handful of images, Photoshop threw up a blank window in front of the application.

I couldn’t get past it.

Two hours later, after much cursing and rebooting, the contents of the window finally appeared — a login screen, for cryin’ out loud. I haven’t had to sign into Adobe in over a year. I have no idea why it suddenly asked to see my papers.

Anyway, by then it was my bedtime and past Deb’s. So today I’ll be playing a little catch-up here.

Returning to Mountain Home yesterday morning to resume her training, Deb raved to me about the sunrise. Other than the subdivision road and a short section of Marion County road taking her north, virtually the entire commute is eastbound, the Jeep’s windshield framing the early morning sky.

Lucky girl.

(And yes, that’s what Ozarkansas backroads look like three days after we get six inches of snow.)

When Deb and I sit down to watch a video on homesteading, rustic living or off-gridding, there’s a good chance that it originates in the Ozarks of Arkansas or Missouri. Many of our regular channels, however, chronicle life in northern climes — Michigan’s UP, Idaho, Canada, Alaska and similarly frosty locales.

I’m inspired by how these folks not only survive the long, harsh winters, they truly thrive. Attitude is everything. To paraphrase what a friend said the other day,

“If you choose not to find joy in the cold and the snow, you’ll have less joy in your life — but you’ll still have just as much snow, and it’ll still be just as cold.”

In absolute terms, damned cold is damned cold. Everyday tasks are made more difficult by snow and ice and shortened days. But when we say that folks in the frigid North “develop a tolerance” for such things, what we’re really talking about is attitude.

If you’ve ever been around farmers or ranchers in the dead of winter, you’ve seen the determination, the toughness, the seeming nonchalance. And if you stuck around long enough, you heard the laughter. You’ve been present for whispered celebrations when the tractor starts or a newborn calf stands on wobbly legs.

We could learn a lot from farmers. Cowboys. Linemen. Woodsmen. Warriors.

Attitude.

I think about the small battles I’ve waged since we took up residence on The Mountain. Like restoring function to broken bits of this tired old fifth-wheel, or wrestling with an uncooperative generator to maintain electric power in oppressive mid-summer heat. Lately it’s been about keeping the heat on and the water flowing (at both ends).

While I won’t tell you, for example, that laying on my back in the snow under the RV the other day necessarily was a joyful thing, I knew that I toiled deliberately toward a worthy end. I felt the satisfaction ultimately in achieving it. I pulled myself to my feet and looked out over the peaceful valley.

Man, I thought, that’s about as good as it gets. It didn’t have to be “sunny and seventy-five.”

Attitude.

We had our two-day break from winter bitterness. Last night and through Sunday morning, we’re back in the freezer. Sunday night into Monday they’re calling for freezing rain, followed by a few days of plain ol’ liquid rain — and (for January) it’ll be warmer.

Today we’re dealing with strong winds and temps only reaching the low 20s.

I decided to enjoy yesterday’s relatively pleasant conditions by picking up a few odds and ends. I removed snow and ice that had collected on the east pitch of the soft shed’s roof, before it did major damage. (With limited exposure to sun, it wouldn’t’ve melted before freezing rain and rain arrive.) I did a little more shoveling around the camper.

Our new Predator 2000 Inverter Generator, still in the box, had been inside the RV since I brought it Home on Sunday, and it was time to get it going. That amounted to adding oil and gas, tugging on the starter rope a few times and letting it run for a half-hour.

I gave our Predator 5000 a chance to stretch its legs, too, while I was in a generator mood. That’s part of routine maintenance, of course, and it’s been known to slip my mind. Today I finally set up a calendar reminder to run both gennies every four weeks.

After grabbing a shower (it wasn’t a quick one, either), I dumped the waste-water tanks. Yes, again. I know I did it just the day before, but I’m gettin’ smarter about this — with another extended sub-freezing period ahead, I thought it best to do the deed while I knew that the valves would move and the contents were liquid.

Given our every-five-days rhythm, that pushed the next dump from Monday (projected high of 36°F) to Tuesday (47°F). Believe it or not, I drained the tanks again today (22°F, but coming off of two days above freezing), which takes the next round out to Wednesday (48°F).

Our neighbor encouraged us to keep his torpedo heater (which I’ve been advised that some folks call a “salamander”) for a while longer in case we need it again. I’ll have to buy more kerosene, and stretching our dump schedule gives me a chance to fold that purchase into other errands (rather than making a special trip).

I’ve added one more step to this most unglamorous of chores — once both tanks have been emptied and the valves are closed, I lift the Stinky Slinky (still connected at both ends) and allow anything remaining within to drain. It’s the best way I know to avoid another frozen sewer hose, and it takes less than a minute.

While plowing through those to-dos yesterday, I didn’t bother putting on a coat. I have no idea how I could’ve been perfectly comfortable in little more than shirtsleeves — temps were in the middle to upper 30s — but I was.

Attitude, maybe?

I’m not gonna think too hard about that.

It’s well-established (and it’s been discussed here before) that Deb and I photograph everything. Our images document this American Life. Many of them illustrate the serial that’s part of Ubi Libertas Blog.

But not nearly all. Most, for one reason or another, end up on the proverbial cutting room floor. Sometimes I’ll have a particularly appealing but irrelevant shot I want to shoehorn into a blog post, but rarely do I find a way to do that honestly.

Today I’ll leave you with a few recent images that didn’t make the cut the day that Deb and I snapped ’em — nothing spectacular, only moments preserved.