{"id":31704,"date":"2024-11-29T17:02:16","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T00:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rodbinder.com\/journal\/?p=31704"},"modified":"2024-11-30T23:00:15","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T06:00:15","slug":"nov-29-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rodbinder.com\/journal\/2024\/11\/29\/nov-29-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Nov 29\/Nov 30 Older Soon Colder Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.<\/strong><\/p>\n

George Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enjoying the last days as a 66 year old. Earlier I cut three maybe four pallets into firewood.<\/p>\n

We have -32 coming tonight. Too sore to write.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nNov 30<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is what they predicted fooking cold. The fires I had yesterday made indoor living tolerable.<\/p>\n

Today was the dreaded ash day. The ashes inside the woodstove were too high. That didn’t leave much room for burnables.<\/p>\n

I made the trip down to my van to grab a covid mask. Not perfect protection, but better than nothing.<\/p>\n

Ash makes a very fine lung clogging dust. Ashes done, I lined the bottom four inches with cat poop.<\/p>\n

I figured they could contribute some heat. On top of that empty catfood bags then, paper garbage I had saved over the warmer months.<\/p>\n

Then finally some of the pallet wood I cut yesterday. I lit that and went out to gather a huge bowl of packed snow for melt. Some time in there cats were fed and given fresh snow for water.<\/p>\n

That would get them through until the snow on the woodstove melted. Finally my turn came.<\/p>\n

Coffee coffee coffee. I thought I left enough boiled water in the kettle. I didn’t. Great no coffee.<\/p>\n

Then I looked to my right on the desk there was a two liter bottle of snow melt. It was a bit chunky, I mean there were floaty bits.<\/p>\n

I decided to pour that through a bamboo coffee filter. It was slow but it did filter the chunks and floaty bits. Twenty minutes later I had enough water to boil for coffee. Boil was the operative word.<\/p>\n

I read that snow water was full of bacteria and pollutants. Usually I filter that through carbon filters first. Two cats got into my water filter room and destroyed it. It was a disaster.<\/p>\n

I would have to try to rebuild that system in my loft. It was already to tight in there. It would take weeks to fill only using snow water. I was only burning two fires a day. Each fire made 2 1\/2 liters.<\/p>\n

Cats consumed 3 liters a day. I comsumed a liter, that left roughly a liter, the system need 19 liters to be functional.<\/p>\n

The question arises how long would it take to fill if I didn’t do the work. Forever.<\/p>\n

Great while I was typing my overfilled kettle boiled out on the counter. I lost a half a cup to that. Gotta go<\/p>\n

Later<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is almost midnight, I could say I was waiting to turn 67 at midnight, but the truth is I am waiting as long as I can to light a fire.<\/p>\n

it is almost -32 outside. 2.4 inside my room. I am under many blankets and cats. Another hour till my birthday. Time either for reflection or a match.<\/p>\n