We came up to the cabin two days after Christmas to play and relax in the silent woods of Harmony. Our little cabin was 34 degrees inside when I opened the door. My big plan to greet Spencer with a blazing fire in the stove was thwarted by my inability to coax anything thicker than a pencil to burn.
Without a fire, the refrigerator doesn’t run, the water in the toilet stays frozen and you can’t turn on the water.
Spencer arrived with the groceries and got the stove going, and soon the place was warm enough that we could deal with a host of other calamities: the toilet would flush but not fill; cans of seltzer left in the refrigerator door had frozen, exploded and expanded so that, once opened, the fridge wouldn’t close.
But by sunset, we had everything running smoothly, and the place was cheerful again. Good thing, because our friend John came for brunch and a walk through the snowy woods the next day.
That night, the temperature plummeted to single digits, and the wind howled through the trees. We left the kitchen faucet trickling overnight to keep the pipes from freezing.
On the third day, as I washed my hair, the rubber shower mat began floating around my feet. The drain was frozen. After bailing out the shower stall, we boiled big kettles of water and poured it slowly down the drain. It didn’t work. The water just pooled up and had to be bailed again. We still had another option: we could shovel a path to the crawl space door, shimmy inside and heat the drain pipe with a hair dryer, but we decided we’d rather just take bird baths in the sink until April.
Though bitter cold outside, in the cabin it was a balmy 60 degrees, quite comfortable if you wear long underwear, sweat pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a sweat shirt and a cardigan sweater.
Spencer worked on a model airplane from a simple kit to which he has added bits and pieces to create a work of astonishing detail.
I drew a piece of Celtic knotwork, the elaborate, interwoven ribbon art found in the Book of Kells and on Irish music album covers. It’s my latest artistic passion.
On Wednesday, we drove to Skowhegan to stock up on batteries, water, cider, canned spaghetti and cake, among other things, to prepare for a pending storm.
Today, New Year’s Eve, the temperature has moderated to the mid-20s, but we’re bracing ourselves for three days of snow that could accumulate to two feet. I could have left today, but I wanted to stay and play in the snow, and we’re having a lovely week hanging out and sipping hot cider.
