liquid propane

The thermometer on my truck read forty below zero when I walked out to the parking lot after work on Tuesday morning. The cab never really warmed up on the nearly hour drive home since I ended up alternating between blowing hot air into the cab at full tilt until the windows fogged over and then aggressively defrosting the windows until I started shivering again. I spent the morning keeping the wood stove roaring and checking the thermometer. But it wasn't budging.

I also spent the day thinking about hot water. When the temperature drops down close to forty below zero, propane starts to think about turning into a liquid, and liquid propane sinks down to the bottom of the tank and doesn't flow. When one depends on propane for one's hot water, this becomes a problem. And because our propane has to travel down an outside line for a while, the functional temperature of our hot water heater stops just under twenty five below zero.  Over Thanksgiving, when we had our last good cold snap, we didn't have running water at all and the propane problem was shelved. This week the water is running just fine but it is all ice cold. 

I consulted with a few friends and long-time residents of the interior, and decided to build a propane-tank-sized frame, box it in with styrofoam insulation and hang a light bulb inside to get the temperature up just enough to get things moving. I brought scrap wood & tools inside to thaw, ran (shivering, fogging, shivering, fogging) to Lowes for some styrofoam board and spent the evening on my little luxury project.

The next morning, I set up the DIY propane shed and hung the light bulb. Now it was time to wait.

In the mean time, the temperature had inched up to about thirty below. I was itching for a run, but had pretty limited time as I needed to leave for work around one in the afternoon. Even though I had fixed Norrin's harness, I didn't want to risk a mid-run melt down that might delay us and put me in a rush once we got back. Instead, I left Pico and Norrin howling miserably in the yard and took off for a short run with the other six dogs.

We turned left down the road this time, and my intention was to run down to the trail head just past the Quist farm. There is a straight-away trail there that heads west along the valley. I figured a nice fast, flat run would be perfect for the time we had. And regardless of my own time constraints, the temperature was still sitting around thirty below. I didn't want to be out long in my old Baffins.

I wasn't sure how Reese would do on the road past the Quist farm. This was the first time we'd run this way since his frustrating and constant obsession with turning the team around on the road. I watched him carefully as we approached his trouble spots, but he never slacked his lead. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then we got to the trail-head. The road keeps going here, and the trail veers off to the right. It is very wide, and looks almost like a driveway. In fact, for most of the fall I thought it was a driveway to someone's cabin. The last several runs this way, Reese had taken this right turn at full tilt, never hesitating. When I called for the right turn, Billie pulled to the left. Reese tried to turn right for a stride or two, then followed Billie, then quickly bowled Billie over in his eagerness to get us all turned all the way around and headed back down the road. Apparently the Reese Brain was back in full force. I hooked in the sled and walked everyone back to the trail. Once in place, Reese and Billie stayed lined out in the right direction and when I called for them to stay left at the initial trail intersection Reese - who had taken the right on the fly the last five or so times we'd come this way - never even glanced at our usual trail. A perfect stay haw thirty seconds after a u-turn tangle. I was at a loss.

We ran down the flat, fast trail, passing lots of right-turn intersections that looked like they headed back towards the Rosie Creek trails. On one straight-away, Reese started slacking his tug and hopping up and down, looking back at me. I have no idea what triggered this hesitation. We were on a long straightaway with no wide spots for a turn and no intersections in sight. I tried to get him to give up and keep running, but instead he stopped, turned INTO the team and started trying to thread the needle, pulling Billie back between Xtra and Pepper and then around the sled. I quickly hooked in and got them sorted out straight, and once pointed ahead again, Reese continued on at full tilt as if nothing had happened.

We continued west for about four miles, then turned around and headed home. This u-turn was a repeat performance of the needle-threading earlier, and it took a couple of minutes to get everyone sorted out. In the chaos, the sled ran over the snowhook and dislodged it. I saw it while I still had a hold of the gang line, but had just gotten the tangles sorted out enough that forward momentum was possible again. It was a nerve-wracking few seconds as I carefully made my way back to the sled, one hand on the lines, gently saying "whoa" to the dogs, hoping they wouldn't lurch forward and pull everything out of my hands.

But I made it back to the sled and snagged the now-upside down snow hook as the dogs took off for home. The return trip was beautiful and cold and happily uneventful. I had a new neck gaiter that my parents got me for Christmas that was keeping my face both warm and dry - a novelty! And I managed to get a nice shot of us running into the yard from our little trail. Apparently my iphone does much better in the cold than the flip, but the narrow video images leave something to be desired ... at least for me. Also, I have to take my gloves all the way off to use it which is brutal thing for hands at thirty below. At any rate, we made in home with just enough time to get the dogs snacked and loved on, get the yard shoveled and get myself a hot shower (the lightbulb worked!) before heading out to earn my paycheck.