No Picture

It's Friday, and I don't have a new picture for the blog today. I will have to take a new batch of them this weekend. A blog without a photo is a bit like how I feel in the dark in the mornings and evenings at home. I start to feel a bit like a vampire or an owl. Unlike them, I long to see the sun and be out in it, if only briefly.

It was 15 degrees at the cabin this morning, with a cold northwest wind that made it seem even colder. I've started to keep the water faucets dripping in the cabin to prevent the pipes from freezing. I've had the pipes freeze up temporarily a few times since I've lived here. Fortunately, I caught the freeze-ups as soon as they happened, and a hair dryer has always been enough to open things up again. Once, I had the pipes freeze when the faucets were kept dripping--I guess I didn't have have them dripping enough.

Most of the time my pipes are fine. The trouble always comes when wind is added to the cold, and freezing pipes usually happen when the wind comes from the west-southwest. Since the winter wind is usually from the northwest, I don't have the problem very often. The pipes were fine during a -16F degree cold spell with calm winds, but froze another time when the temperature was in the teens, but the wind was from the west-southwest. So, now, just to be safe, once the temperature is in the teens, I usually let the water drip. The cats love that, anyway. They act as though I've created an amusement park just for them.