Trying To Stay Warm In "Siberia"

Even by Minnesota winter standards, this week and this upcoming weekend is going to be one for the record books.   Although I probably shouldn't say that - back in 1996 we had an air temperature of minus 63 F, that's -63F degrees!!  That was the air temperature, not the wind chill!  I certainly remember that year.  But this whole week will be very cold.  Here is the prediction for the Fargo area, and we are usually about 10 degrees colder than they are:   high/low for the day

• Today

  Dec 27

  -3° /-9°F

  Bitterly cold with sunshine

• Thu

  Dec 28

  5° /-20°

  Cloudy with a bit of snow

  More

• Fri

  Dec 29

  -9° /-27°

  Bitterly cold with some sun

  More

• Sat

  Dec 30

  -17° /-33°

  Frigid with periods of sun

  More

• Sun

  Dec 31

  -18° /-26°

   

  As you can see on Saturday this means we will be about minus 43 degrees.   Sometimes we are even colder back here in the woods.    Ah Minnesota!  Land of the frozen chosen!  But we all love it up here - the air is so "fresh".    We learn how to survive the cold.  The rest of the country gets crazy when temps go almost to freezing.  We just laugh about that up here.   People often ask us how we can live in those cold temps.   Well, you dress warm, burn plenty of wood (or other fuel ), plug in your cars and trucks and tractors (and in small towns you can leave your vehicles running while you are doing errands in town), and you make sure any animals you have are protected.  Our homes are well insulated, we dress in layers, AND you just get used to it! 

  

  My car is plugged in to insure it will start on these cold mornings.  The heater is attached to the bottom radiator hose.  On some cars the heater is attached to the engine block.  There are other various ways to attach heaters to a car or truck or tractor to make sure it will start.  The other morning we had minus 30 below zero, and my car started up just fine.  We don't have a garage, so this is the next best thing we can do! (Look at our winter beehives in the background)

  
  

  

  Our outdoor wood burning stove that runs our radiant floor heat inside, is burning nicely!   Good thing Harold cut plenty of firewood when it was warmer.  We go through about 10 cords of wood each winter to heat our home.  The radiant floor heat is in the basement cement floor in coils, so the whole house is nice and toasty. 

   

  
  

  

  My farm cats survive in their outdoor cat house.  Inside their house is a large insulated wooden box with lots of thick blankets in it.  We have hay bales inside and out front, too.  This weekend we will put a heater in the cage you see pictured by the side of the house and put it inside also.  This way the cats cannot get to the heater, but it will heat things up a little more inside for them.   The snow also insulates the entire house.  You can also see our beehives in the background.  They also have heaters and thermostats in them, so hopefully the bees are doing well!

  

  A closer look at my cats sunning themselves this morning while the outside temperature was 20 below zero.

  So we Minnesotans have fattened up nicely during the holidays, and we're ready for the hibernation months of January and February!  We'll drink lots of hot black coffee and talk about "how cold it is" outside ..............and that's how we survive the winter!