About that winter storm

SORRY I didn’t scribble this one fresh over the weekend, but getting to it on the winter solstice may be oddly apropos. Now’s the time when our journeys through the world slow down, we’ve an old year to reflect upon, a new one to anticipate. In this, we naked apes ape the world’s first god. Today the sun stopped moving south; now it’ll rise and rise again in the same place for a while (appear to rise, Copernicus), then turn around and get on with the long walk to the long light of summer. Us, too. Because what else?

This was me walking down through the woods to breakfast Saturday, through thigh-high snow. It was a toasty 28 degrees, by far the warmest of the December nights I’d spent outdoors in Vermont.

I’d had a great night’s sleep. Got in my tent at 7:15 Friday evening, traded wet clothes for dry, got into my sleeping bag, pulled a wool blanket over top, read for an hour, turned out the light… drifted away pleased to be a free man on the Earth.

Four nights outdoors this month, not bad, enough for now. My personal best remains unbroken at 86 consecutive nights.

Overnight Friday into Saturday I was vaguely aware of footfalls in the forest. A wind afar in the west would get them going now and again. Keep your dozing ear on it, soon the wind crosses the distance and the footfalls tread louder. The wind gets to where you are and the heaviest fir tops shrug great rifts of snow. They land with a gargantuan kuh-WHUMP… kuh-WHUMP… as if giants are walking by in your dreams, titans striding up & over mountains all night.

Friday was our big day. With Adam and Eduardo there things really rolled along. The four of us installed windows and sheetrocked the apartment on the second floor. There were just four sheets left for Jonny and I to finish up Saturday before we started digging out and getting on the road ourselves.

Adam and Eduardo had driven back to Rhode Island the night before.

We did the easy window first, the one on the first floor. That’s Jonny and Adam finishing up with flashing tape. Great stuff, sticks to the wall even when it’s wet.

The other three windows were on the second floor.

No gloves. Can’t handle nails with gloves. And the level ices up; you de-ice the level with the warmth in your hands so it’ll read accurately.

Eduardo hails from a land of rainforests and volcanoes but has perfectly adapted himself to New England winters. A hardworking man with no time to gripe about discomfort or hardship. He’s fast, accurate, won’t drive the first nail home until the bubble is dead-nuts on.

Daughter #2 of 3 sent up a big pot of beef stew with us.

We had a microwave to heat it, gasoline generator running outside the door. A warm gut keeps you going while working outdoors in winter.

Here’s Adam after we set up scaffolding to install the mulled double window in the front gable. Heaviest window of the day. The sheathing hadn’t been cut out yet.

Now it has…

Adam and I carried the window. He went up the left ladder, I went up the right. Jonny steadied the lift in the middle until we were sure we had our footing. As we got near the top Eduardo leaned out of the building and grabbed the top of the window to guide it into the opening.

Here’s Eduardo flashing the window after the install.

Next up, the second-floor windows around the side of the building, in the dormer.

All the openings were framed when the walls went up, of course: headers, jack studs, sills. Just had to cut out the sheathing.

That really opened up the interior space to natural light and made a big difference later that day when we were sheetrocking the walls.

So the windows get shimmed square…

A few finish screws set the jambs where they need to be…

Before you know it, the space starts to come together.

The ceiling and the rafters on the north side will be finished with 6″ pine beadboard. The subfloor will be topped with 12″ pine boards. Going for the New Englandy look.

So now a bit of goofing around, so you don’t think all we do is work.

Adam had the presence of mind to mount a plow on his truck before he drove up after work Thursday. We might still be up there if he hadn’t.

When there were maybe 18 inches on the ground, he got us plowed out down to the gravel road. Jonny’s standing by the edge of a drainage ditch so Adam can see where not to plow, lest his truck end up sitting on its chassis.

It would have been easy to drop a wheel or two over the side. If he had, we would have needed a wrecker to pull him out.

Adam being Adam, he guns it, buzzes Jonny just for yuks, swerves right by him throwing snow everywhere and Jonny’s laughing like WTH was that?

So I thought, on the next pass I’ll go stand by Jonny to discourage further recklessness. Even Adam must realize old guys break easier; I doubt he’ll try to brush me into the ditch.

Well he never gets the chance. Because I make the mistake of standing on one of the wheel tracks he had just burnished to an icy sheen. Suddenly both of my boots fly out behind me and I throw my cup of coffee in my face as I land on my face. Classic! Got up with my glasses on crooked, face covered in coffee-colored snow…

Jonny and Adam could barely carry on. Adam was laughing so hard I thought he might lose control of the truck. Of course, if he had, how could you tell?

Coffee break. We killed a brand new Keurig machine in two days. I think the generator must have toasted the electronics.

Look at Adam over there being antisocial. Antisocial with us. He’s on a video call with his boys.

Adam’s a good father. He always thinks to call his three mini-Adams when we’re working in Vermont. In fact, after working 12 hours in the cold Friday he drove 3 hours home that night so he’d be there to see one of his boys play basketball in the morning.

Man, it was nice to see those planks come down and be put aside. All the windows are in and nobody got hurt.

That’s it for exterior work until spring. Siding, trim coil and gutters won’t go on until then.

My mountaineering mittens came to the end of the line over the weekend… time to pitch them.

They were well-traveled mittens, 49-state mittens, Canada-coast-to-coast-to-coast mittens. I was sorry to see them go. But in the spirit of the solstice, it’s out with the old, in with the new.

Funny how the snow started when we got there Thursday, ended when we left Saturday. The weekend made for a great end to the 2022 phase of the project.

That said… I already miss my camp.

Thanks for reading, all. To you & yours, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Joyous Kwanzaa, Merry Pancha Ganapati, Happy Yule… all that good stuff.

Tony DePaul, December 21, 2022, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA