Cold

It was good and cold this past weekend. The internet weather forecast for Casco was predicting -16 for an overnight low Saturday morning. It felt like close to zero at the Kennebunk rest area, and I could believe it was zero or below when we got to our house, but it wasn’t anywhere near fifteen below.

I woke up just before dawn, maybe around 6 AM, and noticed that the humidifier in our room wasn’t going. With the remaining chest cold I had, and with the extra-low humidity you get when the weather is extremely cold, I felt kind of strongly that I wanted it on. Maybe Arlene had unplugged it in the middle of the night because it was making too much noise cycling on and off? No, it was plugged in. I pushed the switch, but didn’t see or hear any sign of activity. Then it clicked: the power was off. Darn. The heat doesn’t work without power, so I had to expect that the house would get cold, and I’d have to go outside for wood for the stove. Well, that wouldn’t happen for a little while, and I might as well go back to the warm bed while it was warm. When it got a little light outside, I found a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, checked the breaker box to see if the problem was just in the house, and phoned Central Maine Power. They had a recorded message saying that there was an outage affecting Casco and Otisfield, a crew was assigned, and power would be back as soon as possible. So there was nothing else to do, and I went back to bed again. The power was on before 9, and the house hadn’t gotten particularly cold yet, so all was well. The lowest reading I saw on the thermometer outside the living room window was -4, a good cold morning but nothing memorable.
I did a lot of knitting, at least enough to finish Matt’s sweater. Here it is!

It fits pretty darn snug. I really think I made it too small, but he says he likes it. I hope it stretches out!

Anne was also busy knitting, on a cardigan from the Yarn Girls Book of Quick Knits or some such. She had also brought a copy of Maggie Righetti’s Knitting in Plain English which I looked at.

I baked a loaf of pumpernickel to go with a lasagna Anne had brought from Cambridge, for a good substantial meal.

We walked around our trail system both Saturday and Sunday. We’ve chosen a name for the biggest boulder (that we know of — maybe there’s another bigger one somewhere else in the woods) on the property: Sleeping Rhino. It was a little cold for much walking Saturday, but we did get around the trails and out on the ice on the lake just a little. Matt had brought studded tires for a mountain bike. On Sunday he put them on the bike in the garage and went out on the lake for a few minutes. He reported that cycling with the studded tires was easier than walking on a bare patch of ice in his boots.

On Sunday the temperature was up to the mid 20s, just a nice winter temperature without wind.