140 degree difference!

I am sorry for not writing sooner but it has been kind of gloomy and cold and I have had no motivation to write anything. Actually I have had no motivation to DO anything with this cold weather. It has been 2 LONG weeks of record breaking, EXTREME cold weather. Our friend Chris made the observation that it was 100 degrees below freezing, and there was a 140 degree temperature change from inside our house to outside. At those temps for long periods of times, things just stop working and our community has had a hard time these last weeks. Thankfully Keith and I have not had most of the trouble that others in town have. My friend Shell summed up the feeling of these weeks very well. She said "It feels like life in on pause, till the weather warms up." And that is so true. Most people stay home and try to keep their houses from freezing up. We try not to go anywhere that is not necessary. So life appears to slows down as we wait and pray for warmer weather.

Here are some things that happen when the weather reaches 100 degrees below freezing!

~Vehicles don't work. So walking becomes the way to get around town. Thankfully we have a heated garage so our truck will start but we don't take it out much and if we do we don't turn off the engine. Our trips are limited to very short ones. To get cars started again, many people whip out the hair dryer and warm up the battery and starters and can get it warm enough to start!

~Tires freeze flat! Then it is quite funny trying to drive with a tire that is flat on one side. Kaden thought we were on a Mary-go-round. Up, down, up down. We were giggling all the way home.

~ With trucks not working means the Water and Sewer truck don't work either. Therefore placing us back in the same situations we were in a few weeks ago!

~Heated Garages become Ice Skating Rinks. In our garage we have a mat with raised edges to catch all the snow and ice that melts off our truck. Well our garage got so cold that the water that hit the floor froze inside that mat. So we came out to take Kaden to school and he was so excited that he could "skate" or slip around in the Garage. Did I mention that my garage is heated? I am just glad my house is on the second level so we have the garage to be our insulator. If not that frozen floor would have been in our living room!

~ Water pipes freeze. Meaning you either use an out house (at -68, your bum might suffer from frost bite) or you can use Honey Buckets. If you don't know what a honey bucket is look it up. There is NOTHING sweet about them! But with frozen pipes you make do and then you bring out the hair dryer to see if you can thaw the pipes to keep them from busting.

~ Heating fuel starts to gel. Most everyone here in Galena have a fuel burning heater in their house, us included. At -55 degrees that fuel becomes a gel and WON'T flow through the pipes to heat your homes... BIG PROBLEM! No heat means cold houses, cold house mean frozen pipes and busted pipes and cold fingers, toes, and everything COLD! To keep the gel from gelling, people become very resourceful here in Galena. I didn't know that those pocket hand warmers that you use while hunting would be useful for something other then warming up your hands but apparently they are hot enough to melt the gel into a liquid and allow fuel to heat houses. If you wrap them around a certain area of the pump. And heated blankets become more then something that you put on your bed. Yep you wrap them around your fuel tank and it can keep the fuel just warm enough NOT to gel. And Space heaters come in handy too. ANd you whip out your hair drier to warm up the fuel lines.

~ Propane freezes. Actually that freezes around -30 but at -68 it really is frozen. And most people here in Galena have Propane stoves.Meaning when the propane freezes you have to be resourceful in meal making. Crock pots, electric skillets, George Foremans become your way of cooking. Praise the Lord we have a electric stove, which our neighbors sometimes bring over food so they can use it. Shell says she can sometimes dry clothes and the dryer vent which is right next to the pipe heats it up and defrosts it. And others get out the hair dryer and heat up the lines. I am going to write a book-"100 different ways to use a hair dryer"!

~School becomes optional. Yes, in the Lower 48 you have snow days, here we have EXTREME COLD days. As I mentioned above vehicles don't start, which includes buses. And when buses don't start, they can't pick up or drop off students. Kaden has not missed any days and neither has his whole class of preschooler..... ALL 4 of them have made it every day! So proud of those little kids. =)

~Exposed skin gets frost bite very fast. My face and hands are cracking with just a little exposure. It amazes me how fast your cheeks freeze. We were getting wood for our fire and 5 minutes outside made my cheeks and hands numb and dry out. And I was completely covered! The only thing I was not wearing was goggles. I am very thankful for my Satin hands set from Mary Kay because my hands are finally getting back to normal.

~ You know what the one thing that happened that really surprised me? No excuses were made to attend church. Yes on Sunday, at -68 degrees we still had church. Only one car was parked outside but the church inside was pretty full. People WALKED, IN THE COLD, UP TO 2 MILES, to go to church! I love our church and the people in it. I love the fact that even though it was so cold we still would fellowship and have a wonderful service. I grew up watching the Zambians walk 20 miles to go to church, some even leaving the night before and camping on the way so they could attend worship service. And here we see people walking in the extreme cold to attend worship. It makes me proud of my friends and family. And it makes me strengthen my resolve that NO MATTER WHAT (unless we are sick) will I ever miss church due to a sorry excuse such as "oh it is raining" "oh it is to cold" " oh the church is always cold" "Oh there is football today" Oh I don't think many people will be there" "oh I don't really feel like going today". ALL those excuses should be thrown out the window! No excuse is so great to not be celebrating God!

With all the cold, it really has been a crisis here, but Praise the Lord the weather hit -32 today. I was singing the song from White Christmas all day "We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave, the temperatures rising, it isn't surprising can can." Yes as I said I never thought I would say heat wave with the temperature -30 EVER! Even though it is suppose to drop again this weekend I will enjoy the warmer temps and hope that the weather man is WRONG and it stays in the 0 degree zone for a while! Feburary is HERE and that means March is around the corner which also means warmer spring will be here in a few more months. YAY!! Here is a chart to show you the records that have been set this winter!

I borrowed this picture so I can take no credit for it.