Cold

Cold is relative.
This morning it is a relatively balmy 25F degrees.
Last week I would have told you that 25 is cold, but after the cold snap this weekend, it really doesn't feel so bad (except when my glove fingers freeze to the shovel handle after I've pulled my hands into fists to keep them warm enough to clean the walkways and sidewalks).
Friday morning our thermometer at home said -2. Here in town it was zero. I think it made it up to about 10 degrees.
Saturday morning it was -11 at home and -4 here in town. That is cold.
Unless you live in Minnesota, then even those temperatures could feel relatively balmy.
Really.
I remember reading a book when I was a child that said if you spit at 40 below, it will freeze before it hits the ground. I never thought I'd put myself in a situation to see if that were true.
And then I grew up and moved to Minnesota.
Yep. It's true. You can hear it crackle as it freezes.
However, at that temperature, any exposed skin is not safe. Nothing is safe.
It was so cold, propane gelled in the tank. If it stayed that cold and you had to have the propane to keep the furnace going, you'd have to shovel red hot coals underneath the tank to warm it enough to be usable. Fortunately, we kept our coals in the wood burners (yes, plural - we had 2 of them) and kept feeding them. We went through about 7 cords of wood in a winter. 7 cords of good wood and we were still wearing sweaters in the house.
At that time, PC worked at the sawmill in our little community - about 3 miles from the house. The cold didn't stop them much. If it were 20 below or warmer (who would've thought you'd ever see '20 below' and 'warmer' in the same sentence?), the sawmill ran. At -21, the old man would grunt and the sawmill would stay idle.
Driving on the lake was a new thing for me, too. We lived about 2 miles north of Mille Lacs Lake. It is not a small lake. In fact, I believe it's one of the larger lakes in a state known for its lakes. Not long before Christmas, little icehouses would start appearing far out from shore. The little sheds on skis that sit along the water's edge all summer long were just waiting for the freeze. Once the ice was thick enough - about 3 feet- it was safe for a full size vehicle to drive on. The icehouses are hooked up like trailers and pulled out onto the lake. Whole little communities pop-up. Roads are plowed and the little shacks become homes away from home - one way to battle cabin fever.
In the floors of these little shacks (usually with a plywood bunk or two, a small heater, and a chair) are trapdoors. You pull the handle and it opens up to reveal the surface of the lake about 6 inches below floor level. You use an ice auger to drill a 6" hole. When the ice thickens, you use an auger extension (I am not making this up) to reach the water.
The fishing is good some days, not so good others: like any other fishing, I guess. (If you don't catch anything, you can hook up your house to your truck and move.) The walleye tastes wonderful, but if you're lucky, you catch such a big one you can't pull it in (I'm not sure that's lucky). And they have big, sharp teeth. Lots of them.
Living up there, I certainly saw things you'd never see around here.
That's okay with me.
If I ever feel the need to keep the ice open around my fishing hole, I know where to go.

It worked; I feel warmer already :).

Drywalling vs. Gardening

I'm still mudding drywall over at The 123. I'm just about ready to start sanding. I'm not sure which is less fun.

The weather is cooperating, though. If you can call 50 and rainy cooperative. As long as the weather is nasty I'll be inside anyway, so might as well work on the drywall. Nice weather is too tempting; I spent all last week playing in the dirt with my new rototiller and didn't get anything done at The 123. I did, however, get a bunch of ground turned over and yard work done.

It's supposed to clear up by the end of the week, so I have to spend as much time on the inside work as I can (Gee, I sound like a kid who can't wait to get out of school, huh?).

Cabin Fever & Bio

Perhaps it was the cabin fever (though yesterday I soaked up as much sun as I could, knowing it was going to rain/snow again), but I queried a literary agency about Vultures.
This is the first time I've done it since the whole Amazon ABNA contest and, even though I said I wasn't going to, I think the winter blahs got the best of me and it seemed like a good idea. We'll see....

Anyway, the main point is not the query, but the bio. It's always a challenge to come up with a short, catchy bio (the irony here is that a blogger would have a hard time finding something to say about herself). For this particular query, I wrote a new two-paragraph bio. Usually, I stick with one or, at the most, two sentences, but it was probably the cabin fever and resulting 'screw-it' attitude that pushed me to ramble on. My finger hovered over the 'Send' button as I debated the pros and cons. Finally, the 'screw-it' attitude won when I figured worse-case-scenario would be a total lack of response. (At least I hope that's worst case scenario - I have a long way to go before I establish enough of a reputation even for black-listing. I hope.)

So, here's my new bio (probably short-lived):

"MK Stover is a native West Virginian who finally moved back home. She is a wife, mother, and writer, though not always in that order. Her writing includes small mountains of unsubmitted fiction, a smattering of published non-fiction (though she finds sticking to the facts to be rather confining), ad copy, and small town newspaper columns, articles, and opinions.
Unable to find a decent cup of cappuccino, she and her husband are in the process of converting the first floor of a 118 year old brick building into her hometown’s central site for caffeine consumption and assemblage. The second floor houses her writing studio which is in dire need of organization. Currently, she is working on humorous recollections of her redneck upbringing and feels that her office mess is a symbolic representation of the mental health of her many relatives and, therefore, is a necessary aid to her work-in-progress."


According to Spell Check, 'unsubmitted' is not a word. I use a lot of those not-a-words, so that's not really a concern. What is a concern, though, is that Spell Check's suggestion for correction is 'uncommitted.'
I suppose I should be happy for the 'un.'