VERY, VERY COLD IN NW MONTANA

Wow! It has realy been cold this past week. Coldest I have experienced in my young life. Kinsey says that for her the coldest was two or three winters after she moved here, between 2003 and 2005. It was 20 below for five days running!  Now that's cold.

I don't know how she survived seeing as how she's too cheap to turn on the heaters. No kidding. She uses the wood stove exclusively. And, the wood she burns has all been cut and split by hand by her, around eight cords a year. For some strange reason she seems to revel in the spartan life. I'm OK with it because she feeds me good, but r-e-a-l-l-y? She even likes to brag that she spends less than $100/yr on electricity and the house is all electric! Sound to good to be true? Well, she also built a solar array which provides a big assist.

It gets pretty cool in the house in winter. Especially when it's well below zero and Kinsey doesn't wake up in the middle of the night to put more wood on the fire. It gets so cold, when she hoists the coverings the windows are covered in ice. On the inside! I live in an ice house! Again, I don't mind, my coat keeps me warm and toasty but I do sometimes wonder about my guardian. Please, don't call child protective services. I'll be fine.

She likes to tell the story about that earlier cold spell. How, after five days in the -20's she was getting some serious cabin fever. She looked at the weather forecast and even though the thermometer showed -22 the forecast said it was going to be 25 above in the Flathead. She believed it. She packed Koty into the truck, put in the winter survival trunk and headed off down the mountain. By the time she got down to the valley floor it was -28. She pulled out on to 93 and headed south. It was very dark and gray. And, there wasn't a soul on the road. She kept going, longing to get to that 25 degree weather. About twenty miles down the road after seeing no other vehicles and no increase in temperature she got a little panicky. It scared the dickens out of her that there were no other cars on the road. An extremely lonely feeling. She figured if she had car trouble she'd be a crispy critter before help came along and 93 has long stretches of dead space so even calling for help was iffy. She turned the truck around and headed for the barn.

The low reading for this cold snap was 15 below. I'm pretty sure that's gonna be it. There seems to be a warming trend. This morning it's a balmy -2.

©Kinsey Barnard

Kinsey likes to do things like this to me. It's so silly. Like I need a blanket? Like I said, she feeds me well!