The Foehn

Dave and I sat here this morning drinking our coffee and tea, enjoying the striking view of the frozen lake in front of us. It looks like a great expanse of frozen tundra. It almost seems like a herd of caribou might gallop past us. There is the crunching of ice as though under the hoofs of many reindeer. We squint into the glare of the morning sun and crane our necks to see.

A Chevy rolls past us on the ice.

Our imagined caribou herd disappears and we resume sipping as the ice fishermen drag their sleds full of gear across the slippery surface and unfold their hammock chairs to settle in for a long day.

Despite the constantly increasing number of bob houses that have assembled like a Vietnamese village in our “front yard”, our hopes are high that spring is near. Though the Vernal Equinox is still two weeks away and the sun does not warm the air past thirty degrees on a cloudless day, there are signs that spring is returning.

One morning last week, we poked our noses outside and were pleasantly surprised by a gentle caress of warm air. Standing on the porch barefoot in our pajamas, we grinned and watched as the roof dripped in rivulets onto the snow below. A sudden warm wind whipped around the house and sent the dripping water spraying into our faces. The Foehn had arrived.

When we reach the end of January we are disappointed that it is quickly followed by a cold and gray February. We find ourselves irritated and anxious as the sun is still low and the daylight is brief. We have quick tempers and pick arguments over small things. It is said that before the Foehn blows, ill feelings explode. In wintertime, if you are feeling edgy, sulky, or morose, you can be sure that the Foehn is near.

With the warm wind came rain. We woke in the middle of the night to the sound of rain on our roof for the first time in five months. The warm sun of the day had miraculously melted all of the snow on the roof, and we snuggled into our pillows to the gentle pitter-patter of spring on the eves.

The dramatic change in the environment is short lived. The next day the temperature plummeted back down to twenty degrees. We continue to smile contentedly knowing that spring has not forgotten about us. The stream next to our house has begun to run again under the snow and we listen to it burbling. Though there will undoubtedly be more snowstorms, and the thick ice on the lake will likely remain through March and some of April, rest assured that the proverbial back of winter has been broken.

After all of the rain that had blown in, the ice (that had been muffled by almost two feet of snow) has a new glossy surface. Now, instead of slogging through knee-high powder to cross the lake, we can put ice cleats on our boots and crunch across the top to visit my parents on the other side. Dave explored an abandoned fishing hole in front of our house and discovered nearly twenty inches of solid ice. The rain had soaked through the snow and it had all frozen solid into a glacier-like expanse. In some places, the ice-cover on the lake is up to three feet thick. Though the terrain is too rough for ice-skating, it can now support over 25 tons of weight. Huge pick-up trucks roll past us on the ice and park confidently in the middle of the lake. Some of the fishermen grill hamburgers and sausage on gigantic hibachis off the tongues of their trucks. The scents of this temporary fishing village waft up to us and we feel like bourgeois on the hill overlooking a small bustling town of peasants. We put on the lofty airs of shack-dwellers.

Aside from the industrious peasants below us, the new ice has more surprises. When the sun slips behind the trees at the end of the day, the temperature falls quickly. With this sudden drop, the ice expands and shifts. Fault lines develop and the massive sheets shift and grind. At night we listen to the great booms and shudders as the glacier strains and pushes against itself. From a distance, it is the sound of a huge stomach rumbling that shakes our house and rattles the teacups. When you stand on the ice, the tectonic shifts release a concussion under your feet spiking your adrenaline and sending you hopping into the air.

When I lived on the lake as a kid, our dog Jupiter would spend the long winter days pacing back and forth across the ice with his head down and his furry ears perked. When a particularly loud report shook the ice, he would leap into the air with all four feet. When his feet came back down, he would cock his ears and resume his hunt, endlessly consumed by his illusive ice prey.

We are comforted knowing that spring is on its way, yet reserved in our celebration. There is still a foot of icy white in the yard and snowy predictions for the week ahead. The freezing air numbs our fingers as we stock our wood rack in preparation for the next storm. The sun is gone by four-thirty in the afternoon, but we hunker in and turn on a lamp thankful for the hour of sunlight we have regained since the dark winter solstice. Tonight, the ice seems to be voicing a futile protest against its imminent demise. Tomorrow the sun will rise just a little bit higher than the day before.

Visitors

Time ticks slowly by as the winter months plod along with us. There is an intimidating accumulation of snow on the roof, which I continue to attend to with my homemade roof rake. We’ve managed to keep our important paths cleared of snow (to the outhouse, the wood pile, and the cars,) but the snow in the yard around us is unbroken and if you venture out into it, you’ll find yourself mired up to your thighs in it. It is a record year for snowfall – like the winter days we remember as kids when we would tunnel in the snow banks and disappear for entire afternoons in our white caves. Now, as adults, we are too busy to engage in such trivial entertainment (though in truth, I think it can be attributed almost entirely to a lack of snow pants.)

The ice fishermen are still out there before the sun comes up. They are constantly drilling holes in the ice with their gas-powered augers. They stare at us when we come out of the house to stack our wood as though we were the ones who were intruding on them. We’ve learned to ignore them for the most part now. The fishermen are legally allowed to keep their bob houses situated on the ice until the last day of March – when they are required by the state to remove them. It is likely that they will continue to fish (without their bob houses) into April. I remember a year when the ice stayed on the lake until my birthday, April 22nd. When the open water is interned for such a long winter, it’s return is often heralded by cheering and parties. When the ice goes, the silence of winter is finally broken by the lapping of the water on the shore.

Our hope is that the ice will not hang on so late this year. We are one week into February and have begun talking and fantasizing about the wonders of a warm day. We are thinking of the color of green grass. Mud would be welcomed. I have been eying the front windows and thinking about trimming them out, but the table saw is covered with a tarp and buried under snow. The forecast of 36° today has excited us. I am writing this morning to kill time as I wait for the sun to burn off the chill of last night’s -8°. I am looking forward to going outside and working up a sweat shoveling paths to nowhere. Perhaps I will stack some wood.

Aside from ice fishermen, have had one visitor this winter that seems to be new. Dave was out of town Wednesday night, and I went to bed listening to the sound of the wind banging things around outside. I woke up the next morning to see that the shack’s footings had been explored while I slept. The last snow had a hard crust on top of it, and traced back and forth around the house were the pawprints of an inquisitive visitor. The tracks circled the house several times, went under the woodpile, out across the driveway to the woods and back. It caught my attention that there were little prints that made their way to a gap in the skirt around the house. It appeared that the owner of the tracks had slipped under the house to poke around a bit. I went to the computer and looked up pictures of animal tracks to see who our new neighbor might be. Unfortunately, the most likely suspect was a skunk

It was obvious that our guest had gone exploring under the shack the night before, but in addition to the tracks leading under the house, there were also tracks leading away. There is nothing under the house but lumber and aluminum drip edge, which I assume to be of little interest to a skunk (unless he was looking for a nice warm protected place to live.) We reasoned that since there have been no more tracks under the house since the first night, we did not have much to worry about. But, Perhaps this skunk explorer is a she-skunk looking for a nice place to raise a family.

As adorable as I am sure skunk babies are, I am anxious about their taking up residence in our neighborhood – especially if she chose to nestle under our house! Our floor is no more than one layer of tongue and groove pine in some places. This house is certainly not a duplex, and odiferous new tenants in the lower quarters would be most unwelcome.

One of the best internet-recommended solutions to keep skunks away is to soak rags in ammonia and place them in the area that you want to deter them from. We decided to skip the step of getting manufactured ammonia. A couple cups of coffee in us and we can make our own! This is a new element to living in the woods; we must mark our territory “Never Cry Wolf” style.

The skunk is one of our few visitors around here, and we would not want to drive away anyone who was interested in hanging out with us. We mark our territory merely to say, “hey, this place is taken.” But we still look forward to seeing evidence of our wild neighbors since the house-dwelling ones are so few and far between on the lake in the winter.

This morning there are new tracks from our little friend. This time though, he was not wandering about. He walked straight across the yard and past our house like a skunk with a mission. Upon further exploration, I find these tracks on the ice in front of the house, down the driveway around other camps, and across the road into the woods. I am concluding that our black-and-white friend understands our concerns and respects our territory, but has places to get to that necessitate passing through our yard. So, we have a right-of-way agreement, I suppose.

Time moves more slowly through the winter months. With fewer events in our lives on these short days, the weeks plod by marked mostly by snowstorms, and much less frequently by thawing days. As these snowfalls blend into each other as indistinguishable white on the ground we forget how much time has passed and how much time still has to pass. We wonder if we are past the halfway point. A skunk passing through the yard provides us with something to think about, something to talk about. So we do that, we think and we talk, and we wait for the next thing to happen.

A Drawing

Dave drew this beautiful picture of our little shack.

I just love it. This is what I think people picture when they think of us hunkered in the woods out here. Idyllic, don't you think?

Tundra

It was -18 degrees outside this morning. As Dave pointed out, that is 50 degrees lower than freezing. Your breath practically freezes in the air in front of you and splinters when it falls to the ground. How cold is outer space? It must be close to this. It sucks the moister right out of your skin. It hurts to see.

But, when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. The outhouse takes on a special crystalline brittleness in this weather that is beautiful. The gossamer spider webs that dangle from the ceiling accumulate delicate pearls of frost that drape and shiver in the air over our heads.

It seems that people want to know how it is to use an outhouse in January in New England – when the spit inside your mouth freezes if you don’t shut it. A lot of people spend most of their time indoors during the winter. It is snowing, or it is too cold, and they rush from their house to their warmed-up cars to scoot off to a warm workday inside. There is little need to connect with the reality of winter unless your car breaks down.

Here at the shack, the day starts with a breath of fresh air and a quick look at the outdoor thermometer as we zip up our jackets and pull on our boots. Twenty below. Some might consider it painful, but it is surprisingly electric and satisfying to breathe in that cold air and crunch down the walk to our little outhouse. Honestly, it is not that bad. The seat is cold, but not painful. I chalk it up to my experience as a teenager using an outhouse in the winter. I was familiar with the situation and I don’t remember the outhouse ever being too cold to use (the only thing I really remember is being embarrassed to have friends over because they might ask to use our bathroom!)

I wondered how Dave would do, not having grown up with an outhouse in New England. In the fall, before it got cold, Dave mentioned some scheme about putting a space heater in the outhouse. Friends suggested warming the seat next to the woodstove and bringing it out with us. Impressively though, over his years in the northland, Dave has built up his cold tolerance. Like a true New England Swamp Yankee, he now swears that the cold seat and the bitter temperatures do not disturb his morning reverie.

A morning reverie in an outhouse can include many contemplations and entertainments. The artwork and poetry on the walls has been evolving and changing since we moved in. We both add new pieces now and then, and we used to get visitors who would scribe their name or a clever limerick to entertain us – though in the past few months, we have had no visitors to entertain us with pithy scribbles. We depend on each other for outhouse art in the winter months. We also enjoy reminiscing over the bits and pieces of writing that we accumulated this summer from friends and family. This week the colored markers are frozen, so we have to wait for better Sharpie weather.
The other morning Dave reported that a chipmunk poked his head in through a little hole in the outhouse door. They contemplated each other for a moment, and then the chipmunk slipped back out. Apparently he likes his privacy on the can as well as we do.

This morning, the hoarfrost had collected in a ring around the seat. Even now, in the heat of the day (8 degrees) the crystals are still collecting. There is something very pure and clean about this kind of cold though. Pure and clean is something that you can appreciate when you are talking about your outhouse.

Some seem concerned about our wellbeing at the shack because of our lack of plumbing. We’ll be frank and say that we miss toilets least of all. There was once a time when it was considered course and uncivilized to use the loo inside where you lack privacy (and the ventilation is poor.) There is nothing we appreciate more than our connection with the wilderness of Deerfield.
No, what we miss is definitely not a toilet. What we dream about most is a shower. I get to the gym almost everyday and shower there after exercising. Dave enjoys my parent’s shower across the lake. We both frequent my parent’s house for the lively conversation as well as their running water. Now that the lake is frozen solid, we are wearing a track through the snow across the lake to their house. Walking over there feels like crossing tundra. There are few places left in the world where you will find complete nothingness for such a long distance. We feel like Arctic explorers every time we make the trek. My parents and I have been working on educating Dave about northland ice. It is very different from what you get south of the Mason Dixon Line.

Several years ago, in the winter when Dave and I were first dating, I brought him out to my parent’s house to meet my family. My father seemed to like him right away and took him out on the ice for a walk across the lake. Upon discovering that Dave was from Maryland and had a healthy suspicion of any body of frozen water, Dad took it as his duty to rattle Dave’s nerves a little. They walked over a mile on the ice while Dad told Dave stories of people who had gone through the ice. I imagine Dave watching with increasing apprehension as Dad jumped up and down to demonstrate the integrity of the ice. Even ice that is twelve inches thick will boom like a gong if you pound on it enough. They returned from their walk safe enough, though. Later, when I asked Dad about how he liked Dave, he grinned and said that Dave seemed like a pretty good guy. On the car ride home, Dave told me about their walk and admitted that he was pretty nervous just being on the ice, my father’s stories and demonstrations only put him more on edge. I told Dad about it later, and he laughed and said that there is no harm in putting a little bit of fear into the heart of the man who is dating your youngest daughter.

This winter Dave has been learning a lot more about the ice. Three weeks ago, he was still suspicious. But now that we are into the bitter weeks of January, he has gained a lot of confidence. Soon the ice will reach a new level of frozen. Trucks will be driven out onto it and occasionally pilots practice landing their planes on it. When it is cold enough, the ice sings a song that is out of this world. Something like the sound of a family of blue whales combined with a darbuka drum circle.

The ice is the defining feature of the lake in the winter. It makes the world around us completely different. We now have a front yard that is nothing like it was a month ago. I hope that you will keep reading our blog this winter, because the adventures of living in the shack on a frozen lake have only just begun.

Here on the lake, there are only a handful of people who stay through the winter. We call ourselves “year-rounders”. It is hard to hold that title without being a bit pompous about it. It is one thing to be here for the summer: those three perfect months when the water is warm, the days are long, and friends are plentiful. It is another thing to live on the lake in January.

Year-rounders may try to observe the good points of the lake in the long winter months. We have no neighbors, the noisy jet-skis are all in storage, and we get to watch the flames in the wood stove. Though, in the cold months around the Winter Solstice, the wind is bitter, the view is colorless, and the lake is a frozen tundra.


It is slightly surprising then - when we look out our front window on the frozen ice-scape that is now our front yard – and see our new neighbors. They are an odd breed. Mostly they keep to themselves. Though they seem to be lacking in productive purpose, they are relentless. We watch their little huts sitting on the ice like a cluster of kid’s clubhouses. We imagine them huddling over the holes they have drilled in the ice and drinking beer. There doesn’t seem to be any garbage accumulating anywhere, so we can only imagine that they chuck their empties down the ice hole. First thing in the morning we hear their gas-powered ice augers drilling. Some stand guard over one hole from within their bob house. Some drill a series of holes across the ice and stake out homemade contraptions. When a fish bites under the ice, an orange flag snaps up and it’s owner comes running across the ice with unaccustomed haste.


These are the ice fishermen. They keep to themselves mostly. I spent a morning shoveling off a skating rink on the ice in front of our house. I did this partly so we could skate, but also to mark our territory. As the ice gets thicker, the ice houses spread out appearing closer and closer to our house. Perhaps the fishermen would even start drilling holes in “our” ice. So, I shoveled a huge area to stake a claim on a little bit of ice that we could call ours. I spent hours on the ice with a shovel. The fishermen, who were not more than a hundred yards from me, watched, but continued to keep council with their own. I imagine their resentments towards me – a new year rounder. Dave and I have claimed prime ice real estate by occupying the Shack. Our house abuts the only lake access for the fishermen: the boat launch. In past year, these men may have staked an ice claim directly in front of the shack. Likely they would march up the concrete stairs that lead to our house and gloat to their buddies about the facilities (our outhouse.) Perhaps they even came inside the shack through the broken door and used it like a bob house on the hill, watching their little orange flags from inside where the wind did not blow so hard.

If that was the case, it is no wonder that they might resent us. When we got here in June, our summer neighbor, Shawn, gave us our first bit of advice: “Just don’t put a lock on your outhouse! The ice fishermen will just break it off and use it anyway.” So, we followed his advice and did not lock the outhouse. We wonder if some time we might pull open the door to find a surprised fisherman on the pot reading Field and Stream. It has not happened yet, but the ice has only just frozen.

Determined to break down the barrier between us and the fishermen, on Friday, I marched into their midst. There were a dozen of them and they glanced at me as I approached, and then turned away as though if they didn’t acknowledge me, I wouldn’t exist: a year-rounder. Then one man stepped out of the crowd and called out with a thick Yankee accent, “Hi there! Cold day, isn’t it?”

First contact.

I replied, “Yeah, it’s freezing cold!” Then ventured a question, “How thick is the ice you are drilling over here?”

He grunted and replied, “Five or six inches. It is even up to seven in some spots.”
He even hefted up a core chunk to show me.

I observed, “It’s a inch or so thinner in front of my house – I think because of our stream.” Note: I am claiming a little territory here with my possessive nouns. “It is only five inches thick and you are driving ATVs on it?” I asked.

He shook his head, “I’m certainly not! Those guys are.” He pointed at some younger looking ice fishermen a few bob houses down with an ATV parked next to their bob house on wheels. I theorize a sort of rift between the older and younger sects of ice fishermen. Perhaps my conversationalist-ice-fisherman thought that those impulsive youngin’s might have to fall through the ice a few times before they would be seasoned veterans.

I continued, “Have you been catching anything?”

He laughed and pointed to a fish lying on the ice next to a folding chair. It was about eight inches long. “A kid just pulled that one out. The trout are biting today.”

“Wow.” I observed. “Well good luck!”

“Thanks!” he replied.

Despite our previous assumptions, it seems that we can talk to the ice fishermen. The only thing I have thought of to ask them about is how thick the ice is and if they have caught anything. I asked another guy the same two questions this morning when I went out to take these pictures.

My hope is that was can co-exist with these cold-weather-lake-dwellers. I have made first contact. We will see how this new lake population evolves as the winter progresses.

The Ice Storm

I guess no one in NH was really prepared for such a storm. We lost power on Thursday, the 11th. After eight days without electricity, we were restored around midnight last night, Friday the 19th. Going around and talking to everyone who has lost power in New Hampshire, Dave and I came to realize that in this situation, we are at a real advantage. Having no power at the shack is not largely different from normal shack life. We had already figured out our water, cooking, and heating problems months ago. So, here the shack is: warm and toasty, we can cook on the propane stove easily, and we were stocked with water for drinking and washing as well. The only big difference was that we needed candles to see at night.

It really did not make that much difference from the way we've now been living for months now! I must say that it was even MORE charming in here cooking, eating, and reading by candle light.

The biggest downside was that Dave could not stay here. He had a lot of work to do and could not accomplish any programming without electricity or the internet. So, he was in Vermont working at the office for the majority of our blackout. He did come home yesterday in time to enjoy one of our rustic nights in the shack.

I spent the week decorating the shack for Christmas and reading Gone With the Wind. Now that the power is back on, I can post to the blog and see what is going on with the rest of the world, but I already miss the rustic peace and quiet of a world without the hum of electricity.

For the amount of time that we were without power, there really wasn't that much damage around here from the ice storm. I took some obligatory photos of the most impressive damage. The biggest limb that fell down around us hit our mailbox. Don't worry, the mailbox was just fine.

Waking up on Friday morning, the sound of cracking branches got me out of bed to see what was going on. I stood outside listening to branches breaking and falling throughout the woods. I could stand in one place and just watch branches come crashing down. Lucky, the Shack and all the camps around us were just fine.

Being unable to go to work that morning, I traipsed over to my parent's house to see if they had made it home from their "film-makers shindig" the night before. Of course they were fine. We wandered out into the freezing rain to get a good look at the destruction around the lake.

The driveways were a mess of bowed over birch trees. It seems that Mom and Dad got caught in one here.

We continued on down the road and wondered if perhaps it was the end of civilization and we were the only ones left.

Then a few cars went by and we were disappointed that the adventure was not quite as drastic as we had imagined.

What we did find was that the power was out everywhere, and from what we could tell, it would be some time before it came back on. What fun. There really is nothing quite so exciting as a test of our mettle like this. How would we fare in such circumstances for such a long time?! Quite well, in fact. With Dave out of town for the duration of the adventure, Mom and Dad and I took turns hosting candle-lit dinners at our houses. We sat on the couch and stared out at the lake at the few lights we could see from other people's candles (or generators.) We discussed life and pondered great mysteries. We debated the pros and cons of different flashlight models. We enjoyed our situation immensely.

Rebbecca, my sister-in-law, and my nieces came over to my parents for a night because without electricity their house was cold. We drank wine and stared out across the lake some more.

But, now that the power is back on, we have yet another fortuitous reprieve from the outside world because we are in the middle of a blizzard. For those of you who don't live in New England, I tell you, you are missing out on a luscious and rustic lifestyle that just can't happen anywhere else. These are the few times when the outside world is not always pressing in and forcing you to commute, make money, and be on time.

Today, we are celebrating the Winter Solstice with the family and will be going on a horse-drawn sleigh ride this afternoon in the snow. Happy Solstice - the light is coming back.

We're still here!

I said the end - I lied. I spent all this time transferring the blog over to this darn site, so I feel obligated to post something contemporary to prove to you that I will really continue to write about our life here.

I may find a picture or two to stick into my little narrative here, but today, what I really want to address is our purpose here on the lake.

So, I have noted lately (and this may be purely my imagination, but I think I am not completely bonkers) that some people seem to think that we might be living in this tiny (16 x 28 ft) shack because we have somehow become destitute and cannot manage any other lifestyle. Perhaps no one thinks that and I am just addled. Never-the-less, I want to try and tell you the "why" about the Shack.

Dave and I decided that we would do this mostly because we wanted to see if we could. The plans for this adventure were much different than the result. When we were visiting my parents on the lake in May this year and we were sort of tossing around alternative living ideas. My father said, "Well, there is a camp across the lake that needs renovations and the owner will let you live there in exchange for fixing it up."

We kind of laughed. "Ha ha ha, sure, why not. Let's check it out."

So, we went for a walk around the lake to get a look at this camp. We traipsed down the dirt driveway and saw it sitting there: small, slumpy, and forlorn. We went inside (by reaching in through the broken window to unlock the door.) It smelled like a hamster cage. There were acorns and squirrel poop everywhere, and there were obviously many holes in the roof. Dave and I looked at each other, we looked around this little smelly place and we said,
"Let's do it."

Originally, our plan was to spend the estimated repair time (three weeks) living at my parent's, and then we would enjoy the summer basking in the sun on the dock and enjoying the financial freedom of not paying rent for a few months. Once it got cold, we would find our next home/adventure.

But, it turned it to take a little more than three weeks. The deeper we got into this project, the more committed we were. The summer passed and our wedding was approaching and we were still working day in and day out on this place. It was obvious that we would not be in before we got married.

Our plans were now changing as we realized that in order to make this endeavor worth it, we would really have to live here - for a few years. We'd have to insulate and make the place tight enough for a New England winter. All this would take even more time. We started planning how to get our water once the lake froze.

The result is that we are now living a type of "homesteading" life that we had not planned for initially, but we are finding to be a very intriguing challenge. We are really getting a chance to see what elements of modern life we miss. We are also discovering what we don't miss. Running water has soared to the top of the "missed" list. But, we've hardly noticed that we don't have a toilet. The outhouse is simply charming, and we enjoy getting to write or draw whatever we want on the walls.

The wildlife is always interesting and we get to live close to my folks, but the space is small, and sometimes Dave and I are at each other's throats. We are working on staying cheerful though, because we have a long winter ahead of us.

But the whole point is the challenge of it. How will we manage to navigate all these difficult hurdles? How much will it change out perspective about life? We are already certain that we will not take the modern conveniences of hot running water for granted ever again! (If we are at your house and we turn on your faucet, note the look of awe on our faces.)

We may come up with new schemes and solutions for these obstacles as well as unseen ones that we will undoubtedly encounter through the winter. You better keep checking to see if we both emerge from the spring thaw intact and ready for another summer at the shack...