"Ooh, it's cold. Like that planet Hoth in 'Empire'." -Jay, Clerks, The Series

There's a reason I didn't buy the thermometer that only went down to -20.


Blue is the color of the Arctic.

The extension cords that we use to outside in these low temperatures are predominately a sky blue color. The hoses that go from the nozzle to the pump at the gas station are predominately that same blue.

They’re not made of the same stuff as is used in non-Arctic climates: these are rated to –65F. Common hoses and cords would break like your mother’s back after you step on a crack. These blue cords and hoses remain as supple and pliable as a drunk Scientologist down to a temperature lower than Brad Pitt’s IQ. And that’s low.

Another thing that is that same blue is the insulation that I used to insulate the hot tub. It’s not fiberglass – since fiberglass doesn’t work really well here. If there’s any moisture, fiberglass will soak it up, and soon just be an icy block with at bit of fiberglass in it. The blue foam is a closed-cell poly-iso-somethingorother. This blue foam is legendary in Alaskan construction, and I’ve seen the exteriors of some homes made up in this blue foam and Tyvek. Hell, for all I know the things are entirely made of blue foam and Tyvek.

When it starts to get cold, and pass some critical point in the atmosphere, tiny snowflakes can fall from a bright blue sky, shimmering in the sun like diamonds. Now, you might be confused, since I said that they were like diamonds. It’s really not a bunch of diamonds falling from the sky, that only happens at Madonna’s house. In this case, it’s just snow. But it looks cool. And you don’t have to smell Madonna. I always thought she’d smell like a garlicky old cheese. By old cheese, I mean stinky old cheese that smelled like Abe Vigoda’s feet. And that was after she took a shower. The Mrs. thinks that she’d smell like sweat and pepperoni, with a hint of cheap perfume. Either way, well, eww.

But, how Madonna smells has little to do with the weather in Alaska.

When it gets cold enough to be unusually cold, the air gets thicker than a good salsa. Cold air is denser than warm air, so it creeps around the countryside here. You can drive a mile and see the temperature drop 10F (that’s 200C) on a regular basis. The cold seeps under the doors, through cracks in the wall smaller than Brad Pitt’s IQ (just driving that point home). That means those are small cracks.

The cold flows. It follows the low spots, and oozes. We’re in a local low spot. It gets cold here, and the forest we live in traps the cold. Cold air stays lower, so the people who have the houses on the hills are typically 10 to 20 F warmer than it is down here. The little thermometer on the site is normally 10F higher than temperatures here at Casa Wilder. But, the folks in the hills have to deal with the wind. I can cut wood to warm the house, but beyond that, unless bitten by a radioactive Hillary Clinton, I cannot control the wind. One day in the last year, you could have called it windy here, and that was a 30MPH day of wind. That wasn’t winter, and it was easy to deal with.

Hill or valley? I’ll take the valley. But, I’ll sweatmby blonde butt off in the summer cutting wood for the winter.

We heat our house entirely with wood. We have a backup of an oil forced-air furnace, but resorting to that costs money, so we don’t do that. The Mrs. (mainly) and I (sometimes) bring wood up to the house. I mainly bring it in. We have a single wood stove that does a fine job heating the house, but you have to get up during the night to put wood on it. That’s okay, we have a baby and I have a job, so, not a lot of time goes by before someone shoves a few sticks in the fire.

Wood is a good heat source. I’m not “Green” by any means. But, I am cheap. Wood requires sweat and effort. It makes you strong, and you can’t keep a lot of weight on you doing as much work as we do cutting, hauling, unloading, cutting, and stacking wood. I still think I should charge Hollywood Starlets heaps of cash to come here and help me move wood – heck, you can see what it’s done for me.



The first actual picture of John Wilder on the Internet. Training method: hauling wood, drinking beer.

So, if you got tons of cash, let me know. I can help you knock off a few pounds. I’ve still got some wood I need to split. Heck, I’ll only charge you $150 a cord to split it . . . .