Brrrrrrr! it's cold outside!

Winter in Maine is definitely not for the weak! I Discovered that the hard way, as usual. I grew up in Southeastern Mass and thought Winters there were tough! The coldest that it ever got was maybe 10 below zero. It would snow and then melt and then snow again-all winter. It usually melted before the next snowfall.

That is except for the Blizzard of 78', of which I was the perfect age of 8- to fully enjoy it. I remember no school for two weeks and piles of snow on which we built excellent forts at the end of the driveway. That was the year my father bought the snow blower! We also had a tennis court in the yard-we were tennis brats and my little sister Kristin became the tennis star of the family. We built huge forts and tunnels all around the fence of it! This is what I remember of it. I also recall a police man coming by on a snowmobile (the first one that I ever saw- and only one until I moved to Maine) and asked the people of our neighborhood if we needed anything at the store. For our mail we put a bucket on a pole since our mailbox was buried. That was my memories of lots of snow and it kept me interested. I never recalled the adult perspective of it all though-until I moved to the mountains of Maine. I found out later that the snow in that blizzard was 48 inches that fell in a matter of hours (pretty much the weekly snowfall of 08' up here!).

That first winter the snow came in fast and never left, it just kept piling up. I learned the hard way about frozen pipes. I had since learned that you have to leave on the faucets of water overnite (slow trickle) with the cabinets open so the pipes will not freeze. I actually learned about that on the news when they told us of the two weeks ahead in our first winter of temperatures of 40 degrees below zero!!!!!!! This I certainly had not ever experienced-nor even imagined!

The buses put chains on their ties and only cancel school when there is more than 6 inches of snow and ice. The roads are very dangerous with all of the hills and curves. Kids need many pairs of snowpants and even we do (for shoveling and other outside chores). They need them just to wait for the bus due to the windchill.

The mailboxes here are very sturdy and should be made to withstand the monster plows up here. I have had to refinforce mine many times and always find mail in the Spring at the thaw! I have also heard from people in town that the plows sometimes wait until dark to plow to ait for overtime! Who knows for certain on this. I know that the hill that I live on is very scary on just a normal day due to the amount of snow on it. I have arrived home many days after braving that hill to have a glass of wine (after I bank up the fire) just to calm myself down!

I went out fast and purchased all of the wool items I could find, socks, hats (pre-sheep),scarves etc... I learned the value of wearing layers upon layers. This is mainly due to being outside in the frigid temperatures and coming inside to houses heated with wood stoves (usually inside the temperatures are around 80 degrees!).

I learned why the driveways are called dooryards here. In the winter, everything freezes and the yard becomes a whole new landscape. The snow piles up so high that you have to have plenty of room for it to be moved with the plow (only this year could I afford this luxury). The plow comes in and moves all of the snow out of the way-creating whole new boundaries in the yard-way past the actual area for the cars). This new area becomes smaller and smaller and there is less room for the snow to be moved. Normally I park inside of the garage. Now it is used to store hay and grain and tools. I park my car in the new area near my door so that I can run out fast to heat it up for a half hour before going anywhere! You need to heat up the cars for quite a while. Also, I mentioned in a past blog that the tires freeze when temperatures dip 25 degrees below zero! In the years before the plow here-I would park my car at the end of the driveway facing out to the road so that I had less to shovel to get to work. I would have to practically snow shoe out to my car-find it and then shovel out. This process would take an hour-plenty of time for it to heat while while shovelling out of the rest of the driveway and through the amount left by the plows! Last winter I was also carrying out buckets of water (filled in the kitchen for the sheep) and bringing in the frozen buckets to thaw for evening. This year my daughter Jacqui helps me with this since she is older and stronger. I also make sure the cats and dogs are taken out and fed before I leave for work and the coffee for my thermos is made (my one luxury I have from the old days is my flavored coffee). I also make my own cigarettes as most people do here in the mountains of Maine. The tax is so high. So, there is quite a lot to do in just getting out the door here in winter!

The normal snowfall for my town in 90 inches. This was certainly surpassed last year when we had over eight feet! This was when I barely had enough money to survive and was living on a shoestring budget. I learned to plan ahead for this winter though and put some money aside for this and other possible events I now knew about! Last winter it seemed like each week we had one day of a foot of snow and two days later another 6 inches. This went on tirelessly for months. We wondered if we would ever see the grass again!

I tried to snowshoeing in my front yard and actually fell in over my shoulders-I screamed and screamed and no one heard me at all. I wondered if I would die in my front yard about a hundred feet from my living room window! The snow banks were so high that when I shoveled by hand (I had to beg my daughter Jacqui to help)-the snow would fall over on our heads-the banks were so high (way over our heads)!

I worked (and still do) at a place a little to the North of here in Wilton (where I sell insurance to people in New Jersey). They do not have sick days at all and myself and my other co-workers braved this tremendous amount of snow to make it on time to work each day. During lunch we would come out to shovel out our cars so that it would not be that bad when we finished work at the end of the day. The banks were so high they towered up to most of the first floors in town at at work. We would walk out through a tunnel where you could not see over it to get out to the parking lot.

My normal commute is fifteen minutes and sometimes in the Winter it would take two hours to get home. I had to make sure that my daughter had shoveled out enough so that I could get back into my driveway (dooryard)!. The snow would fall and on those days-the ice would cover it. It would not be so bad if the way there was flat-but in this area-there roads are very rural and treacherous. The hills are monsters and I had learned to drive uphill into skids and learned the true meaning of "white knuckling it!". The hills wound and dropped off-but the scenery was beautiful. One night I could barely see the road from the side if it- had not have been for the treeline-the snow was so deep-it had not been plowed in five inches of recent snow (the roads were desolate). I had noticed an enormous buck (male deer) meander onto the road in front of me and look right at my car. I dimmed the lights and sat there waiting for him to finally turn and walk away. Another good thing about the back roads here in dangerous weather is that there is hardly any traffic! Many times I had been thankful for an empty road! I had learned out of pure survival that you can drive in the middle of the road (more area to recover from a skid)-there are no cars coming in any direction for most of the commute! This is common practice and I can see why!

Most people have four-wheel drives. I do not in either my van or the car that I inherited from my great Aunt Gyneth (1990 Chrysler LeBaron-35,000 miles on it 2 years ago!-She lived in Frammingham, MA) . Both have front wheel drives and I had done well with those for the most part. Each year I would buy two new tires for the front and prepare my car for the winter besides the tires. I learned that you really need things like, water, snacks, blankets, flashlight-in the car-antifreeze etc... and it is always good to have duct tape-you never know! I also have a small shovel in the back and extra boots).

This year my boyfriend (lasted four months or so) told me about a place in New Sharon to buy tires. I bought four of them. I naturally thought that they would be aligned and found out that they were not. Therefore, when the winter this year hit-I was all over the place!!! It was horrific and I prayed even more than before and did not know why. I found out that the tires were not aligned and that my front two band new tires were bald! I soon after had new SNOW tires put on them and am finally getting over my fear and am gradually healing from my many skids and near snow-banking frights!! I also learned that up here in Maine-people actually get drunk and on purpose try to snowbank their cars! Interesting.... NOT. (well, that is what I heard of someone recalling the"good Ol' Days here in Cheddahville).

In the winter it is wise to have many sources of heat for the house. Most people have wood heat and others to supplement it or to back that up. I used to have the wood furnace in the basement as my main heat source until I finally retired it. It would last wonderful for a few months in the Fall and when the weather turned downright frigid-it would almost explode! This happened each winter around January (when it gets too cold to snow!). The furnace would back up and the last Winter actually backfired into the basement-we ran for the yard and prayed! The house was filled with smoke and I promptly called the fire department. Up here the fire department is not a paid position-but a volunteer one as I understand it. It is very rural and there are a lot of barn fires-especially in my town it seems. They got to know me. My roof is very steep and they probably dreaded climbing it. Each Spring I have my chimney cleaned and almost tried to myself when people warned me about it-good thing. The pitch is much steeper than the average roof so the snow can fall off it. Anyways, the fire department came and went and cleaned out the chimney-again! I could not stand it anymore and decided to buy a wood stove that I could safely monitor from my living room!

I used to use the wood stove for main heat and the oil for supplemental-it would kick in when the fire died down and allowed for travel over the weekends. When the wood stove was installed in the Spring of 08'-they had to disconnect the oil completely for code. Therefore, I cannot go anywhere unless I have someone to keep the fire up. If the house is cold enough the pipes will freeze.

Also, since my house is so old and a farmhouse-the rooms are not all heated by the wood stove. The main area is gloriously warm while the exterior rooms-like the kitchen and bathroom are frigid. On most days and nights when the temperature is below 20 degrees- I have to put on the space heaters in those rooms. I also have a large heater in the basement so the pipes would not freeze. My wood is free and from my own property-thank goodness for that! I have an agreement with neighbors where they cut down 6 cords of wood for me and take 6 cords for themselves! However, my electric bill shot up from a normal $58 dollars a months to over $220! Ouch! I turned off the space heater in my bedroom-have my youngest daughter snuggle with me for warmth and pile on about twenty blankets in that room. I also turn on the other heaters when it is under 20 degrees (Unfortunately that is most of the time!-Right now it is about 3 degrees outside!).

Since my driveway is now an ice pit-I was told by my friend that you can use the ashes from the wood stove to put out on the pathway. It was a wonderful idea for a while. It makes the walkway easier to walk on and melted it a little if straight from the fire. However, I could not handle washing my floors two times a day-very messy!!!!!

Proper footwear is another necessity. There are slippers for inside-the floors are often too cold, clogs for running out to heat the car fast before work and out to the barn to check on the sheep. Then were are the boots. You really need safe and warm boots. The bigger the tread the safer. You also need something water proof and for frigid temps! I used to wear fancy heeled boots when working in Boston. The walkways were always neatly shoveled and well sanded. Here, well this is the country and you really need protection from the ice that seems to be everywhere! My boots that I brought up with us-were not safe or warm enough here. I got rid of those long ago. They only collected dust from memories of another life far away from the tundra up here!

I got rid of the nylons before I moved up here and vowed that I would never wear them again. I heard that up here the only use for them is in fixing a belt from a car and for washing the wool from my sheep in. I would never dream of wearing a dress up here in the Winter anyways. I would not even make it past my tundra and iced driveway-let alone to any place else in it! I wear jeans or corduroys (yes cords-I hated them as a throwback from the 70's-but here they are warmer and help) with thermals underneath! I sometimes wear two pairs of socks when I have to stay out in the barn for long periods of time as well.

You cannot be cool and go outside without a hat up here-you would literally die of frost! Most men wear beards-I certainly understand that one! They shave them off in the Spring and you get used to the differences of them. At first it was odd-since in Mass a beard was well groomed and a fashion statement-not a necessity as up here for men and kind of scraggly as they more often are for warmth instead.

You cannot joke about the cold up here. This we had learned a tragic way. My ex-husband Jim (who I still get along with well) had a horrible accident with frostbite. This happened last winter. He was out plowing my driveway and had gone on to plow someone else's that was the last anyone had heard from him until I got a call from his second wife. She told me that he had fallen and somehow passed out in the snow and was in the hospital in Rumford fighting for is life with frostbite! We did not think that he would make it so I rushed over with our daughter-Jacqui to visit him. He did live and had lost several of his fingers on both hands. He was a welder and traumatized. It took him many months to recover and now is back to welding! He is amazing and I am thankful that he prevailed. He has grown up quite a bit from when were were married (from 1991-1997).

So, needless to say-we are tough people up here and can pretty much handle anything! Now that my fire is banked and the house nice and cozy-I am jumping in my bed under layers of blankets to snuggle up with my little Tiffy (my 9 year old daugher)!!!!

Brrrrrrrrrrr for now :)