Life at SoftAcres 11/23/18 - Shelter and Thanksgiving

After disassembling the green house, consolidating the things in there down to a strong (meaning, able to hold a winter's worth of accumulated snow) three foot high level, all finally appeared to be completely stowed.

After the snow had settled for good, the property was now barren of all color. The numerous thin living trees fit right in with the stick gates and bare maple arches that I had created. Everything except the blue tarps covering the shelter was in an overcast of monochrome. It didn't take long for me to crave something beyond black and white. The fire pit that I had really only used for burning trash over the summer stepped up to play that color role quite nicely. 

I've sought to do a fire each evening now. With their orange glowing, these sunset fires of early winter seemed to channel the colors of a future spring through their flames. Or, maybe that was just me? All the sunrises and sunsets to come flickered through the fire of the present moment, like they do through every light source. You just need to blur your eyes a bit and look into the distance of the flame. By that, I mean all things of value exist on the insides of each light source--it's all the same light. As one closes one's eyes to block the outside world and peer within, so does light share that inner space. The perfection potentials of Reality are almost entirely within consciousness. I know naturally now that as I view the material world around me I am staring out into the thin membrane that separates all things from nothingness. I know this outer place completely now; the darkly imperfect realm of mostly physical existence. There isn't much left for me here/there anymore.

That there had not been a proper fall before this permanent snow pack made the lingering days of November even darker. Apparently, my "lucky" piece of personal global climate change now includes sustained winds of over 30 mph, at least three times a week, starting the moment the clock turns 12:00 am, on October 1. Moreover, while green leaves remain on some of the trees, I need to expect a permanent snow pack by the end of the second week of October. Judging by last year's admittedly mercurial patterns, December should include weeks of below zero temperatures, dipping to -30 on the longest nights.

I mentioned last time that I quickly covered the shelter in time for the heavy rains and then snow that swept over My part of Perham Hill this last October. There is much more that I need do, but my physical situation is limiting the extent to which I can accomplish all that I want each day. I believe the next post is going to be about some of these new heart-related developments. Nevertheless, I do all I possibly can, even when that wicked succubus, Angina, chooses to have her way with me...now, a few times a day.

I installed a wind breaking tarp along the west side of the shelter instead of making a full doorway. I just could not do the construction right now. It will also save me some lumber for more additions to the structure of the shelter. The breaker works very effectively on its own, with the wind sealing it against the entire west side of the shelter. It is a pain in the ass to get in and out once the breaker is down, so I try to make damn sure I remember what I need to take with me into town, or bring in for the night.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I had gone shopping the night before. I didn't have enough to buy more than that night's and next day's food. Checking out at Tranten's I was proud to have gotten as much as I did. There was no brand turkey stuffing for $0.99, a family pack of chicken thighs for $1.39 that I joked about at check out, "pretending to be turkey," four little potatoes, two small white onions, and a beer for another dollar. The plan was to eat two thighs that night, and save all the rest for my Thanksgiving dinner the next afternoon.

Besides, I didn't want to carry too much, lest the heart stab me at each step up my mile long hill. I woke on Thanksgiving at about 3:00 am to the now familiar ache in my chest. I've been using deep breathing techniques to fight it off. I discovered that I had been sweating--this, in the 15 degree temperatures. The heart pain--something alternating between the feeling of swallowing a large bone, or having barbed wire implanted from one wrist, up across the chest and into the next wrist, then pulling it from side to side; the shivering cold sweat risking hypothermia, the nausea of anxiety about not having money, being cold, feeling like I'm fading away from this life... None of it helps an already dangerous and unpredictable lifestyle. The mild frustration I have with trying to descriptively put you into my bootliners, while noticing how utterly I fail when I reread my efforts, seems sometimes like an additional slap in my face each day.

I drank some water that hadn't frozen yet, and when I felt better, must have slipped back off to sleep. It is with a little bit of satisfaction that I can report that I never feel the heart pain while I'm asleep. Even my dreams seem to completely separate me from it. Sleep has become a place of supreme respite. Perhaps it is a hint about the relief that death will eventually bring--resurrection, or not. Sorry if that is too morbid for people's conventionally blissful denial.

Waking again, I felt much more rested. The sun was leaking in through the window on the shelter, and thence projecting a shadowed image of the window upon the inner tent wall. It was about 9:30 am. The temperature in the tent had risen to a balmy 20 degrees. I slipped out of my double sleeping bag and clicked on the the little heater. I stood there in what I usually wear to bed: a sweater over a long sleeve shirt, over a t-shirt, underwear and pajama pants from Reny's. I've been wearing my boot liners as slippers inside. I'm not sure why, but I still check out my reflection in my little mirror each morning. On this day I saw my matted hair, now dry after its cold sweat bath the night before. My beard has completely invaded my face and neck. There was an old man looking at me. They say age is psychological. Guess that's why I'm old now. Makes perfect sense. I feel so close to the end that I'm almost wondering if my tapping on that door is...voluntary?

Most of all, for the first time in months, I peered deeply into my own eyes. There were the irises I knew so well. These were the eyes of the new baby, the hopeful child, the disappointed kid, the unhappy teen, the self destroying young man, the foolish adult, and now...just a sad old man. I watched them get red and water...blue eyes...I closed them and turned away.

I've been trying to make up for my battery overcharges by only charging my phone, letting the panel charge the battery banks for the rest of each day. Overcast and snow are washout days for charging. Still, in more than a month, the only full charge I had was the very first day I installed them. They rest now at about 11.88 volts. I am ruining them by not being able to fully charge them, but I have no choice.

The heavy gust buffeted the west wall of the shelter, slapping any loose part of the tarps like little gun shots, while fine crystalline snow dust made a fizzing sound as it continuously blasted the outside of my only home. When my phone was charged enough I turned on Maine Public Radio for the news, while I made coffee. The gas camp stove needs to be run with the tent vented, which kicks the overall temperature down. 

I began cooking at about 2:00 pm, boiling the potatoes, some carrots and onions. I removed the potatoes and carrots to have separately. To the boiled water, now with butter and the soften carrots I added the stuffing mix. Discovering a can of smoked mussels, I delightfully cracked it open and added them. Then it was a matter of frying up the last two chicken thighs. When I was finally done, I had an enormous mound of food to munch on. Settling in, I felt some actual satisfaction creeping into my consciousness.

Just as I began to eat, I heard voices out on the snow covered road. Then there was yelling, "Alex!? Hey, Alex Wall!?? Hello!". I'd spent the whole morning warming up the inside of the shelter and now I had to open it? I was displeased.

When I finally was able to get out, I saw my neighbors (abutting land owners). They were on their cross country skis blabbing questions about whether I knew someone had dragged a couple deer out of our common right of way. I had no idea what they were talking about. They told me I needed to "be careful, people don't know you're out here!" Beside finding it extraordinarily rude to interrupt me as I ate my Thanksgiving dinner, that they were accusatory and completely clueless about how disruptive they were being. Before they left they said, "stay warm!" That was going to be a lot more difficult now that I had let out all my heat. I will say, folks, that people who are poor and don't have the front yard, or front door to keep their privacy sacred, still deserve to be treated with dignity. These people see me as the fool on the hill, something less than deserving of respect. Does that help my struggling lifestyle or broken heart? Nah...Not so much.

It ruined my day. I couldn't even finish my meal, because I was so pissed off. Trying to get my mind off of things I worked on a writing project that is nearing completion. Sometime after the 3:45 pm sunset, I began to get another feeling I have gotten used to over the years...food poisoning. It was a mild case, and after filling my toilet bucket, I felt a bit better.

I was trying especially hard to feel thankful. At this point in my life, it is only lowest common denominators that I can thank God for. Thanks for allowing me to live in a freezing place, on one meal a day, rather than on the street. Thanks for letting me have only a few pangs of angina each day and night, rather than continuously. Oh, and by the way, thanks for the emotional numbness that is slow replacing the hopelessness that I have tried to beat back.

Are these things to be thankful for?, I asked out into the ether, and maybe to the Spark. Going through each day, loving life less, and feeling nothing at all when I should be happy...or sad...is a kind of hell with its own special torments. I am not unaware that the longtime reader is likely to be fatigued by the lack of happy endings in my story. But please don't give up yet. I'll leave you a definite note when it is time to give up on me, if I can.

For now, here are more pretty pictures, mostly showing how nice the shelter looks on my land. Maybe tomorrow will bring some uplift for us both...

Devil in the rising sun.

From the first snow storm.

Cold turkeys.

My pond, soon-to-be itsy bitsy ice rink.

The solar batteries could not keep up with the four effective hours of daily light. I needed to hold smaller expectations for using my devices. Like any debt, the debt of over loaded batteries charge interest of a certain kind. Adding knife switches to toggle between battery banks allowed me to squeak out a bit more energy each day...

Two bi-polar (appropriate!) switches. the first toggles between my old and new battery banks.

The lower one let's me decide which bank powers the inverter to give me AC.

Bank 1.

Bank 2.

Second snow storm.

See how the sides puff out with about 500 pounds of dry leaf insulation.

Ah, the rink emergeth!

Color! Look into the flame...

Third snow storm.

From my walk back home. The sore loser didn't even pick up his trash.

Fourth snow storm. I used ashes to cover my paths to prevent slipping.

When I'm gone, don't let them
take down my totem pole!

Fifth snow storm.

I'd like to thank the reader for walking up and down through the heights and pitfalls of this story. There won't be an awful lot more to it, I think. I just want you to understand that as long as I am still willing to grasp the handholds of hope occasionally, that there may still be a surprise ending to all of this. If there isn't it will become plain enough. 

Life at SoftAcres 11/01/18 - Building the Winter Shelter

Today I'd like to make a more technical post. I may have several of these posts focusing exclusively on each of my Five Basics for Modern Human Survival. The usual order is based upon the importance of each to immediate survival. The idea is that you can only survive for a few days without 1. Water, a few weeks without 2. Food, maybe a few months without 3. Shelter (at least in states like Maine where up to five months), and similar amount of time without 4. Heat (or the opposite--mitigating against extreme heat in some regions or seasons), and finally 5. Electricity, being what puts the "modern" in Modern Survival. Relative to the other four basics, survival is of course possible without electricity--as millions of people do get by in such a primitive condition. But, electric power is so much more useful to survival in a world of global communication, as well as one with electrical devices that can save human beings from slavish labor. The washing machine clothes comes to mind.

This was my long way of letting you know that I am not going to post these in order. Specifically, I'm focusing on shelter first, because you may be aware aware that it is my most limiting aspect. 

I have excellent means for harvesting and filtering water. Though I am usually able to buy enough food, I would never starve to death (theoretically) here in the richest nation in human history. Thankfully, the natural environment fed me well over this last summer, with plentifully forageable plants, and a modestly successful growing regime. Heat - until I can build a radiant heating system - is provided very effectively by propane. And, of course even my electricity is nearly adequate for my simple lifestyle. Only shelter has been the question mark. 

Last winter was anomalous, as I was able to rent a cabin from my very generous and supportive neighbors. This year though, I have built what I am quite sure will be able to protect me well enough from the harsh Maine winter. Unlike last year, when I couldn't even afford lumber to make a frame and instead relied on large branches or small trees that I'd cut down, combined with Walmart tarps. Due to not being regularly present on the land, the "shelter" simply ended up being a flimsy way to protect my stuff. As bad as it ended up being (many of my cordless and battery operated tools were encased in 4 inch thick ice, for example), amazingly, nothing valuable was ruined. It is a bullet I don't believe I could dodge for a second winter... Besides I want to prove to myself that I can rough it through a Maine winter.

So the following should give some idea about how the new structure was constructed. Many folks have asked about it. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. It was a much large challenge to build than I had anticipated; not because I didn't know what I was doing, but because I built it entirely alone, with no power saws. 

I will say that I ran into so many seemingly project-ending puzzles (i.e. how do you span a 10 foot  2 x 4 length roof with a spine 8 feet off the ground without someone to hold one end while you secure the other, while keeping it level and straight?). Still, often after carpet bombing the forest with F-bombs and sometimes reaching impasses that seemed impossible to ford, I came up with some fairly creative solutions, if I don't say so myself. Mostly, it came down to using a tacking method with screws and/or finishing nails that I could later remove the ends of and readjust as needed, finally pounding in some 16 penny nails to hold it for good. Or I would sink the holding nails the rest of the way once things were aligned. Let's take a look...

Hammond Lumber delivered all the way out to my site!

The author coffee-ed up and ready to go.

Building around the tent was not easy.

Hot dog time.

I made a point to ride my bike down and back up the 1/2 mile private, each night after working,

or took it into town and back--trips that took two hours by foot took 20 minutes by motorized bike.

When rain and snow was suddenly the forecast, I left the spaces in between the rafters, 

just to get the tarp, up over and surrounding.

I installed more supporting joists and other wall studs after tarping the structure.

Good enough to keep the rain off! Later, I would disassemble the green house in back to consolidate my storage space, and then I removed the front wind screen that had served as my out door pantry.

The basic structure took two full 12 hour days for me to have ready for a freakishly bizarre mid October snow-wind-rain storm. Unfortunately, since that day, no further outside work has been possible. We went from sunny summer harvest to winter without the normal expanse of fall to cushion the shock. Since that day there has been either continuous rain, hellacious wind gusts (some exceeding 60 mph!), a combination of both kinds of weather, or other activities that were more important to being able to afford to eat--like writing and other income generators. So, I compromised a bit and laid the tarp covers over the frame, before installing more roof trusses and other strengthening studs. If I had done all that before covering the structure, it would have been a big-assed, wet, slushy/muddy mess that would have remained wet within the structure (with no more warm days to dry it out). 

A DIGRESSION INTO THERMODYNAMICS

It has always been my hypothesis that the ability to retain heat has less to do with insulating, and more to do with stopping air flow. Air flow under 40 degrees Fahrenheit sets up a catalyst, where micro-evaporation sucks energy out of the air. Heat is simply radiant energy (inferred light, in fact). It is sapped from humid air just like with air conditioning. Except, unlike A/C, the air never gets drier, since it is fed by the outdoors. That is why there are "wind chills" that make us "feel" colder than the surrounding ambient temperature. Cut out the air flow, and you can reverse the process by heating from within. The mostly sealed inside environment then dries slightly as the objects around the heat source literally begin storing excess heat on their own. 

I should mention though that since I'd be using propane to heat and cook with, the risk of carbon monoxide buildup needed to be factored in. Knowing that CO sinks to the floor, I left noticeably present air vents at the corners of the inner tent. On my first night using the heater (which is technically safe to run indoors, as it is exhaustless), and even with the openings allowing floor level circulation with outside air, the inside of the tent easily reached 70 degrees F within 10 minutes while the temperature outside was 30. And it took nearly a half hour after shutting off the heater to coast back to just under 50. That is a good ratio. It means (at least with the known variables I've just accounted for), that for every hour of heater use allows five hours of relative warmth. The trick is to immediately turn off the heater at 70 and get used to the dropping temperature enough to not be tempted into turning the damn thing back on prematurely. A furnace would do this automatically, via thermostat. In my tent I am the thermostat. 

Folks interested in thermodynamics, could have a ball analyzing how various factors affect the differentials of heat gain and loss. For example, it took reading at three different levels (6 feet, 3 feet, and floor level). It confirmed with a fairly high degree of accuracy that there is a rough range of about 15-20 degrees between ceiling and floor. Heat to 70 degrees at the ceiling, sit at a 60 degree desk, with thick socks resting on the 50 degree floor. Average temperature = 70 + 60 + 50 divided by 3 ~ 60. While this formula seems obvious, the mean (which in this case is also 60) is not always also the average. If one were to graph different scenarios, integrals describing the combined functions of multilevel temperature gains and losses can be fascinating from a scientific stand point. My life is going to be too short to study these in detail, me thinks. I just want be warm. But my German brain can't help being fascinated by za numbuws, herr reader. There are so many variables that can be adjusted, that an entire paper could be written just about how structure affects the behavior of energy at that one 30 degree example.

So, just one tarp layer, sealed at the top, that allows for ventilation at floor level goes some way toward stabilizing the system. The other experiment I dreamed up was a bit more outside the box. Surely, if one tarp layer was fairly effective, two (one on the outside of the shelter's frame and one on the inside (at a parallel plane) must be even better. Then while lying in bed mentally planning the inner layer, it occurred to me that when the snow melted I should try stuffing the spaces in between these two tarp layers with clean dry leaves, as I mentioned. I did exactly that. I had no idea if there would be issues I could anticipate. But I tested the lower angled part of the shelter by stuffing it first. It took fifty 30 gallon tote trips (!) just to fill it--a lot more effort than I thought. However, the result was extremely good. As I've been able to work on reinforcing the inner parts of the structure, I am filling them with anything I can for insulation. But I'm running out of time. The sky dumped a second storm's worth of 3 inches of wet heavy snow last night (I write this from over a month in the future).

I will have a follow up post showing just how well the shelter is doing now, after more snow, and an unreal number of extreme wind events. One major wind storm (I'd call it more like a tempest!) slammed the little house with 60 mph gusts, and sustained wind speeds of over 30 mph. The rounded edges where the tarp is pulled over sharp areas helps tremendously. It is like a kind of shrink wrapping. Still, that first major storm? I was genuinely frightened, and it takes an enormously dangerous situation to actually scare me. Now I trust my construction, but I have to admit to saying my prayers a few times in the last two weeks!

Thanks again so much for reading and donating your monetary and moral support.

LOVE!