Liquid gold

Propane shortages across the Midwest have reached the crisis stage, and it’s hitting home at Loveless. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency last weekend, which means that National Guard troops can knock on doors to make sure people aren’t in danger.

It's seriously scary. In news reports, people are turning their thermostats way down to conserve what little is left in their tanks, and are using electric blankets and space heaters to make it through the below-zero nights. About 250,000 rural Wisconsin residents rely on propane to heat their houses.

Prices now top $5 a gallon. When I filled my tank last March, I paid $1.53. I read somewhere that's the equivalent of paying $13 a gallon to fill up your car's gas tank. 

The shortage is caused by a colder-than-normal winter, the shutdown of a key supply pipeline and heavy use of propane by farmers to dry out their grain last fall, experts say.

This is my first full year using an LP tank and, like everything else about this Loveless experience of mine, I’m proving my creds as a damn clueless city chick. I have no earthly idea how long a tank of liquid propane lasts.

The last time I was at the lake I failed to trudge through the thigh-high snow to check the gauge. Now I’m kicking myself. But I’m part of the elite. When I go up this weekend, I’m checking on my year-round neighbors.

Busted

This sopping wet floor greeted me after pipes froze upstairs under the kitchen sink, courtesy of the Polar Vortex, Round One. Pretty sure I caught it soon enough to avoid serious injury to the Ikea cabinets or bamboo floors, but the drywall ceiling Chris was in the middle of mudding might require some repair or a do-over.

Last year, winter was forever long but mostly mild, and it didn’t occur to me that I needed to do anything other than keep the heat turned on. But the thermostat is in a geothermal underground bunker, and apparently it gets a helluva lot colder upstairs with all those windows.

This year's Winter Cabinology Lesson: Turn off the water main, open the upstairs pipes, flush the toilet.

My friend, Paul, a builder-handyman, was with me when we discovered the frozen pipes (which actually are plastic tubes) on what turned into a frustratingly unfruitful trip. We had planned to start working on the shower pan, but we ran into problems there, too. Paul dug 2 feet under the floor and still didn’t find the drain, which meant I needed to call a plumber -- or worse, track down the builder.

Paul surveyed the damage to my kitchen faucet, reflected on our lost day and offered up a bit of pidgin Nigerian wisdom: “Na condition make crayfish bend,” he said.

Life’s difficulties piled on us this day. What can we do but accept it?

Snow tracks

A query from the Three Dog Blogger about the animals we’ve seen at Loveless sent me rummaging through drawers for this card (which I bought more than 20 years ago and intended to frame), first published in 1897 in St. Nicholas Magazine.

What I’ve seen most in the flesh (and recognize their snow tracks) are rabbit, squirrel and my neighbors’ dogs. I’ve seen deer tracks, but only spied one once, two summers ago, walking along the far shoreline.

Last fall I saw a gang of a dozen or so wild turkeys scooting single file through the middle of my hill parallel to shore. My neighbor Scott, a year-round resident for decades, said he’d never seen wild turkeys so near to the water, which made it a double-cool sighting. He was the one who researched the proper way to identify a group of turkeys as a “gang.”

The most exciting discovery by far was the distinct bear paw we spied in the mud one spring, fairly close to the road. Lane Burke, my gone-too-soon Loveless Laker friend, told me he saw a bear on our side of the lake during one of his morning walks, so I know we weren’t making up tall tales.

I’ve also seen raccoon scat, but not yet a live one, though it’s inevitable. For reasons unknown, the St. Nicholas card gives the humble ’coon the most real estate of any of the critters, devoting three columns to its various gaits: a “slow jumbing gate (cq),” “slow walk” and “fast trot.”

With such distinctive features, I’m rather inspired to take a closer look.

Polar Vortex

We awoke to negative single digits this morn and temps aren't set to rise above zero until Wednesday – four days of crazy cold not seen in these parts for more than 100 years. At times like these, we just hunker into survival mode. Heck, even the Packers lost today -- at Lambeau Field.

A bathroom is on the docket for the New Year at Loveless, though I have learned that priorities here are fungible. They become freely interchangeable depending on what’s broken (or leaking water) at the moment, what the building inspector/insurance agent has to say at the moment, how many better-paying jobs Chris has at the moment, and the ever-present factors of how much time or money we have at the moment.

I’m setting a goal of “springtime” for having a shower and running water. And I’ve preserved my perfect record of driving Chris crazy by starting to assemble the next project before he's had a chance to finish the current one.

Thus, the tile, vanity and shower fixtures are stacked up on the job site and ready to go...

Two hundred pounds of heavenly joy.

... as soon as that drywall project gets done.

 

The newest member of the 90 Percent Club.