But with an essentially unheated bathroom, how the heck do you manage with a solar shower bag from Coleman to keep even halfway warm while bathing and dressing after? One thing that helps a lot is making sure I have something hot to drink, some snack-type food and my laptop and/or a book handy next to the bed when I get done. Some tips:
1 - Get the water a bit hotter than you really think you'll need. It will cool off quicker than you think. Use the full five gallons if you can heat up that much and easily get it hung up.
2 - Add your cold water to the shower bag first. This allows the bag to not get weak spots or leaks from melting due to hot water hitting any weak spots in the bag. QA is great with these things, but it can happen.
3 - Don't necessarily use the string to hang up the bag, even though it comes with the thing. We use a couple of screws put up near the ceiling in the shower stall, about 2 inches apart. A small step stool in the tub helps us to get to height to lift the bag onto the screws, then the stool goes back into the master bedroom closet. Make sure you have a good bath mat or a really thick towel down on the floor to stand on afterwards. If need be, use two or three towels.
4 - Get undressed AFTER you have the bag hung up, the curtain closed, and the towel over the shower bar or hung in very easy reach. Put your clothes in easy reach of the shower stall. We use a small table right next to the shower stall, because the vanity is just a foot or so too far away for easy reach to clothes afterwards. Get in the shower stall quickly and get that curtain closed!
5 - Wet your hair and washcloth or bath pouf quickly and first of all when you climb in. Turn the water off. If you use shampoo, lather hair first. Then wash your body. Your body loses heat quickly in this kind of situation, so your goal is to get clean while losing as little body heat as possible. Hang up your pouf or cloth as soon as you're done lathering up.
6 - Turn the water back on and rinse off. Use all the water out of the bag if you want to, though it doesn't hurt to leave a bit in there. Try to keep the kinks out of the hose, as it does tend to bend and cut off the water flow if you aren't careful. Not a problem, per se, just an annoyance. Rinse hair first, then your body. This warms your head (worst heat loss area) quickly, then your body, which loses heat fast when you are wet. Don't worry about closing the valve once you run out of water, you can do it after you are dried off and dressed.
7 - As soon as you are done, do NOT open that curtain! Grab your towel (we put ours over the curtain rod so it's really handy). Towel most of the water out of your hair first, then dry your body. Don't be afraid to rub hard when you do this. You are going to chill quickly, even in the close space of the shower stall, from the water on your skin. The rubbing helps stimulate blood flow to your skin and warms you up a little bit.
8 - Hang your towel back up and reach around your shower curtain or crack your shower door (do NOT open it all the way!) to get your shirt. Be sure you put a shirt on FIRST of all your clothes (if you're a woman, this is one time to skip the bra). This will help cover your body core and start trapping heat next to your skin again quickly so you will stay warmer. Then go for underthings, then open the curtain and step out onto your bath mat or towel(s). Get your pants on, then socks and shoes/slippers. Extra shirts if you need them. In this short time, your arms are not going to get that chilled, because your body heat is starting to generate good again and your clothing will keep it next to your skin. Once dressed, towel your hair AGAIN, getting as much of the water out of it as possible. You don't need to use a blow dryer, but you do need to get the water out so your head can stay warm. In the winter, I often put a hat on to trap head heat and dry my hair faster.
9 - GET INTO BED. This is where having stuff handy on the nightstand before I get the shower bag full and hung up comes in awful handy. Kick off the slippers or shoes and climb under the blankets to make sure to get toasty warm. Since for me, my feet and legs get cold easily, getting under all the blankets helps keep them warm while my body completely recuperates from the shower. It may have been a nice, hot shower, but in winter, cold air makes even hot shower water cold pretty quickly. I just sit here in the bed and stay cozy and have a snack and something to drink and write or read on the laptop or whatever tickles my fancy.
As it is, the boys and Quentin are all curled up asleep in or on the bed. Smudge is SNORING. I know Quentin's tired because he never goes to sleep this early (840 PM) even on a weekend. Work has been running long days lately to make up for the snow time we had, and with two holidays in a row coming up, and thus more time off, him being on second shift means a few really long days ahead. As it is, with New Year's next week, I'll see the Times Square ball drop by myself - he'll be working. He was worried about me getting home that night safely. I told him to worry about himself. I'd be getting home when all the revelers would be going out to GET drunk. He'll be coming home when they're done partying and are driving home WHILE drunk.
*****
Well, getting home Monday night was a lot of fun. It got super cold, in the teens, by shortly after sunset, and so while the house is comfy, it's darn cold out there. I felt so glad to get done with work, knowing it was snowing. Ozarks snowfalls usually aren't that bad, other than the fact that everybody laughs because we end up closing pretty much everything down whenever it snows. I know, I know. It's just snow. Why shut down? Well, Ozarks snow is different from northern states snow. Back home, up north, y'all get all these lovely fluffy, fat, wet flakes that pack. Here, we get snow all right. In pellets. Little, tiny ball bearing type snowflakes. So you drive on them and go sliding everywhere. I know how to drive in snow. I grew up in it, I drove in it for ages, and it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is going slipping and sliding around on it when there's no excuse other than the blasted stuff won't pack and gives no traction. Drove home tonight doing 35 and felt blessed to do that, though there were a lot of spots I slowed down even from that.
The mountain road just about did me in, though. I got up to the halfway point at Cliff's and decided to give it a whirl. I was doing a good clip anyhow, and figured I could get up the other big incline that causes to much hassle without much of a problem.The snow had stopped mostly, the trees were blocking what little was still comin down, and all the ice and snow had melted from the previous mess. Eeeek. Major scare, as I got halfway up that incline and then ended up starting to lose traction. It took some real fast footwork to goose the gas and get the steering wheel turned enough to get the tires to grab traction as best they could. I was shaking pretty bad when I finally got past it and into the driveway.
But Quentin knows that despite the freaking wind chills, he will likely be parking at Cliff's and walking that last little bit home to be safe. If I barely got up the road before it got horrible, it's not too likely he'll manage to get up the road all the way. He'll get to Cliff's if he's lucky, and that only because he's put about 400 pounds of wood from the woodpile in the back of the van, right across the axle, since the van is rear-wheel drive. He's got to be able to be safe or else he's not going to make it home after work.
One thing is for sure. The house is warmer than last year by a long stretch. I may be a bit chilled right now because this place isn't the best insulated place in the world, but the thermometer we installed in the living room says it's 60 in here. That's a whole ten degrees more than it was this time last year, and so it's much more comfy. You wouldn't believe what a difference a mere ten degrees makes. Though I think the dishes may have to wait another night to get done because I'm just that chilled from the shock of the drive home and all. I'm about to take laptop and munchies down to the bedroom and huddle under blankets to make myself feel better. Especially since it's only supposed to hit about 37F tomorrow for a high, but Chirstmas will be 46F, and from there, it's up to 50F and up the rest of the week. Woohoo - grab the shorts and t-shirts and swimsuits! (Just kidding, but it will be nice!)
Though it will make for a heck of a boring evening. I've gotten rather used to being in the living room and having the boob tube on for some background racket while I work on something. But it's just too blasted chilly right now and I want to be warm. Also, I'm sleepy and want an early bedtime, because things kept breaking at work and it was a nightmare and I'm glad it's over but I have to go back again tomorrow and do it all over again. Ugh. I just hope things don't go breaky breaky all day long again.
*****
Christmas Eve - at least things went well today and the day went by pretty quickly. The road was a bit slippy in a couple spots this morning going down, but with the daytime temps up near 40F, it got warm enough that all the messiest stuff was gone again by the time I got home tonight. So I was able to park in the drive again, yay! Dinner is planned for tomorrow - pork chops, mashed taters, green beans and gravy. It's chilly tonight again though, so I'm enshrined once more under blankets in the bedroom. The living room thermometer says it's still about 60F in there, but the wind chills are bad enough that the living room is pretty cool underfoot. That makes it hard on me, because if my feet get cold, I'm cold all over.
So, I grabbed the afghan I'm putting together, a pair of socks I'm working on in the Blacklight yarn, my dinner, and the latest seed catalogs that came today (Jung's, Gurney's, and Henry Fields) and took them all with me down to the bedroom in small armfuls while my dinner heated up. (Leftover meatloaf and mashed taters, and an apple and cheddar cheese. Also a small thing of chocolate ice cream I grabbed at the store tonight - weird, I know. It's frigid out and I want ice cream. Go figure. *laughing*) With dinner done, it's time to veg out with seed catalogs or yarn stuff or a good book (currently reading Jingo by Terry Pratchett, from the Discworld series). And I need to call Mom yet this week and catch up with her.
Apparently also, there are Christmas goodies in the van, which Quentin will bring in the house when he gets home from work in the morning. It's Christmas Eve and second shift has to work a full shift, plus a bit due to having tomorrow off, so it's likely he won't get home till near dawn again. Going to be the same thing next Tuesday with the New Year and all. But I'm not griping about it, it's just one of those annoyances you have to deal with when you work for someone else.
Did find something interesting laying around at the laundromat Saturday that I forgot to mention - a slightly out-of-date catalog from FarmTek. So I need to remember to go to their website and order a current catalog. They've got some things that I want for the homestead as far as gardening items, but I need a catalog that's not two years out-of-date. So anyhow, I'm back to my book and my dessert and snackies later on and calling Mom, and all the other things I have to do to keep busy in the slightly warmer than the living room bedroom end of the house. (Only slightly warmer because it's a bit better insulated, so cozier for the really chilly evenings!)
Besides, I have reading to do other than for pure pleasure. Pratchett is incredibly funny, especially if you enjoy British humor, or at least a rather dry humor that requires what is, in comedy, "the straight man." If you grew up watching (as I did) Carol Burnett, Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello (though I missed Burns and Allen and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, even in reruns) ... well, Pratchett is humor for you in written form. Then there's always the reading to learn. I'm dabbling between my ebook copies of Carla Emery's "Encyclopedia of Country Living," which is always a treat, and John Seymour's "The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency."
I really need to get these as hard copies, and with Quentin working full-time and the hump of getting him back to work over with (along with that awful pricey fuel pump repair), I can start to do things like get me some clothes I need, get things for the homestead and garden and such, and get a lot of books and things that I want or need for reference and the like. So yeah, it's busy time, even if it is winter. (And the next time someone tells me that since I homestead, I simply MUST be able to volunteer for such-and-such because everybody KNOWS that homesteaders have all this free time on their hands ... I swear I'm gonna have to really fight not to deck someone on the schnoz that really deserves it for sheer stupidity.)
*****
So here it is, Christmas Day afternoon. I feel a little badly because with everything cutting into my paycheck, I didn't have a chance to get anything for Quentin for today. He went to the Dollar Store and got me something, though, so now I feel really bad, lol. He says not to, I gave him a great Christmas present just by helping him to stay on an even keel all this time till he got back to work. So what did he get me? A lovely knife block set. It comes with a bunch of different knives that are useful in the kitchen, including a boning knife, so now if I get a joint of meat, I can cut it up better. All I need now is my own darn steel so I can sharpen them properly. If Wal-Mart opens back up later tonight like it's supposed to, then we'll go down and do the holiday gifting we meant to do. He doesn't know it yet, but he's getting a can of his favorite ground coffee and a personal coffeemaker, one of those that makes one cup at a time. He likes coffee, I don't, but he'll get something he likes that's not tools or a "normal" guy gift.
I might get me some more yarn, too, while we're there. With good checks coming in for both of us now, it makes it a lot easier to do the things that are needed to do. So what else am I doing with my holiday? Well, I called Mom for a while last night and caught up with her, and thankfully, despite all the storms, she still has power. It's like my hometown is an oasis of light in the middle of nowhere, because her brother and sister, on opposite sides of her in other towns are without, and my Aunt is not likely to have lights back before Saturday. Aunt Sandy's oldest boy got her a generator so she can have some heat and lights, but it's not good for them. Most of my family has no clue how to deal with the grid down. At least with being a homesteader, I have options. Limited right now, but there's options.
I'm doing a lot of needlework and reading, and laundry finally got put away and I've got dishes soaking. They've needed doing, but with the temps the way they've been, it means holding off on them until I can do them in daylight so I don't freeze while I'm doing them. That unheated kitchen is just a bit too unheated at night for that, ya know? And while batches are soaking, so the clean up faster and easier, I'm working on my spreadsheet for my seed orders. Now that there's two incomes, I can at least get seed and tuck it away. Maybe get some five-gallon buckets this year, drill drainage holes in them, and put some topsoil or something in them to grow some of the permament stuff like berries and fruit trees. (I dunno, would it hurt fruit trees to be planted in buckets and then down the road a few years, be transplanted into ground? Anybody???)
The only downside to doing my spreadsheet is I'm only a few pages into wandering through the Pinetree catalog for entering "wants" into the thing, and I've got a heck of a list already. Maybe I should stay away from half of this stuff, but gosh, just a few seeds of each thing would make for a heck of a nice garden .... not to mention if I actually had the time to plant and care for all of the stuff I want. SOMEday ... it will happen. And each day brings that closer. (And the seed listing is not even counting the plants and trees and the books I want! Though the books can be bought used off Amazon, which helps somebody else that wants to work from home to make a little bit of money.)
The bad part is, I'm only logging in things that we would eat ourselves or that would be for sale at the farmer's market, never mind things like grains for livestock we don't have yet. Excess can always go to the farmer's market and get sold there, or put up extra for us, or get composted. But ya gotta get it going first, and there's the rub right there, because there's just not enough clear space here to do any growing, unless a lot of stuff gets cleared out and it all goes into containers to start anyhow. (With all the crap around here that's been just dumped on the ground over twenty years prior to us, I'm not sure what all's even IN the ground, so I'm not too keen on growing directly in the ground here anyhow.) The really bad part is that I'm only on page 22 of the Pinetree catalog and already have around 150 varieties of various things I'd like to grow. I haven't finished the veggies, greens, or herbs yet. Methinks this is getting just a wee bit ambitious and will have to be seriously trimmed back or a lot of seed is going to get held onto until I have a place to plant it all.
*****
What a lovely Thursday this was. Work went fast, dinner was good (homemae pizza, and I ate too much), and I'm just relaxing and not really doing a whole lot of anything, though there's a bit of spinning going on and when my fingers tire of drop spindling, there's always knitting or sewing up that afghan. So there's things to be done - yeah, right, I have loads of time to do nothing, so I can volunteer any time someone says jump. I hate to disillusion folks, but even with this place in the shape it's in, there's a ton to get done. Trash to pick up and burn or bury, the Merlot to scrap out, the house to keep up, trees to clear out and turn into firewood or burn, and that's just what I can come up with off the top of my head.
*****
Thank goodness it's Friday. Today was just a rough day, and I'm glad it's over. The weekend calls and I'm ready for it with my knitting and the afghan and my spinning, and my books and my garden catalogs. Oh yeah, I got a couple more today - Stark Bros. (which has merged with Miller Nurseries) and R.H. Shumway, which I haven't gotten before but is turning out to be kind of fun in an old-fashioned catalog kind of way. Ah well, dinner's done, and it's time to grab the afghan and get sewing some stuff together, because I really want some more done on it. It may be a bit difficult ... there's a "Castle" marathon going on on TNT tonight, and I like that show. So, um, sorry folks, but I want some TV time and some afghan time, and the rest of the news is going to get shorted for those.
Oh yeah, and my "want list' is up to 151 items now, and I'm still only at the lettuces in Pinetree. I have a feeling my seed list is going to be huge just for the vegetables. Never mind any flowers I want to get, too. Or supplies. Er. Yeah. Good thing Quentin's got his job back, because my paycheck is paying off old bills, fixing up a few things and buying garden stuff and fiber stuff and stuff to resell. Ulp. Good thing we almost always get 40 hours, because I'm gonna need the dough. Heh heh heh.
*****
Ummm. It's Saturday night and we finally did some Christmas shopping to gift something to each other. I think we did pretty good for ourselves. Mom had sent down a big gift card for us a couple weeks ago, and when things were a bit tight the last couple weeks with short checks from the bad weather, we used that for gas and groceries so our checks could pay the bills and do what gas and groceries they could. Two incomes is nice, but when the checks don't total a whole lot because you only worked five days total between the two of you for two weeks solid, it ends up with those checks not stretching very darned far.
So what did we get? I thought of getting him a personal coffee pot and some coffee, but with his teeth, he can't really drink coffee the way he likes it (lots of sugar). It would just set his teeth off and send him to the doctor for some major painkillers. So instead, I let him pick. I gave him the price limit and let him go to town. It wasn't much, but he picked out an all-steel Stanley hammer that he's been eyeing for a long while. On one income, we couldn't even manage to nickel and dime to save up for it, but it was fairly easy to manage today. He got me a knife block set the other day which I'd been wanting anyhow, but he surprised me today with getting me a pink, fluffy bathrobe so I can be really warm after my showers or at night when I don't really want to be in a lot of layers to stay warm. It's even got a zipper instead of snaps or ties or whatever to keep it closed. Goodie!!! No gaps to let cold air into my warm cocoon. And that's my week, so now it's time for BOOKS!
COOKBOOKS
HOMESTEADING BOOKS
I know I get your Facebook feed, but for some reason I can't find it now! I hope y'all stay warm and dry in the upcoming snowmageddon events!
ReplyDeletehszoo, the Facebook link for the farm is in the links on the right. My personal one is https://www.facebook.com/heather.rauschenberger.
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