Tag: Winter

Casey

Nishi is now Casey. Their pronouns are they/them/their. They’re identifying as genderfluid.

They came out publically a week or two ago. We’d been talking about it for some weeks before that. They let me help pick out their name.

We’ve been doing really well lately, communicating well and talking things out. They’re doing especially well since they discovered gluten was the cause of most of their health problems. A change in diet has led to a dramatic change in their life. I’m thrilled about it.

We brought home some carpet for the bus yesterday, and I went to meet with my bankruptcy attorney and shower. When I got back Casey had laid it out underneath everything in the bus – one giant piece of carpet carefully cut around our built-in furniture. I am extremely impressed.

The bus is warm, and we’ll be here this winter. We’ve already had some snow, but not enough to stick. It’s cozy here. :D

Rough Start

2015 is off to a rough start. Our January is complete with vehicle malfunctions, scarce employment, and escalating health issues. Of course, all of these things will be remedied, but it’s still rough when they all pile on at once.

Nishi had been having more and more back issues lately, and hasn’t been able to lie on her side for a week or more. It reached a point late Friday night (it’s always on weekend nights) where we had to do something about it. Down to Middlesex ER we go, to see what they can make of it.

Nishi had been laying in bed prior to our trip, and hadn’t changed out of her pajamas. Since the air outside was under 20°F, she wore her fuzzy winter hat with the little ears on top. This apparently alarmed the ER receptionist, who talked to Nishi while I parked the truck. Moments after I get inside, we’re whisked back to a room where Nishi is receiving more attention than she has ever gotten in the ER. I’m asked to stay outside, and they proceed to get her changed into a hospital gown. This is all new to us, previous visits had been very straightforward, but we go along with it. The nurses changing her quickly discover there’s been a bit of an error. They were getting her ready for a psych evaluation.

Our running theory is the hat was to blame.

We did get to see the ER doc, and Nishi is feeling better. Mark came over today and pointed me in the right direction so I can get another car running. It all comes back together eventually.

Hibernation

It’s cold out. We got a lovely delivery of snow a little over a week ago, and it’s slowly melting away. I always imagine my ideal winters like snow days in my childhood. When we get lots of snow, we either go out and work, go out and play, or stay inside and get toasty. Trying to do other things in the face of harsh cold and snow is not fun. I think that’s why so many people up here hate winter. I don’t mind shoveling or chopping wood, they keep me warm and able to enjoy the outdoors when it’s quite cold.

We missed a good sledding opportunity with that last storm. I didn’t have any sleds, and we were snowed in. And, AND, the town stopped plowing the side streets, so there were long, flat stretches of space begging to be sled upon.

I imagine future winters without work, where I stay in and stoke my woodstove, and read. I will stay in and try to perfect a skill, like baking or making pizza. Something warm. Then I’ll go out, breathe in that special winter air, and chop more wood for the stove. Shovel a little path to a firepit outside, which I can get roaring hot enough to enjoy the winter night sky.

Summer is for work. Working on my car or my house is a miserable prospect this time of year. That’s what summer is for. Work is easier in the summer. We were offered some gigs selling ice cream at festivals this summer. That’s a nice paying gig that’s fun in the summertime. Maybe that could be a more regular seasonal thing.

Looking ahead

I’m trying to figure out a few things before winter hits. I’m not sure if I just wasn’t ready for it or if the air got cooler quicker this fall, but I feel like I’m running out of project-weather. There have been a lot of days recently that were too cool or rainy when we would have otherwise worked but didn’t. Today Nishi and I got a lot of oil strained and buckets washed. I won’t be able to keep straining and storing oil like I do now when winter comes, so I need to be ready. Last winter I filled a 55 gallon drum, and I think I’m going to do that same strategy this year. I may buy an additional drum to be safe. As a backup, I have 12 five gallon buckets that can be filled, holding about three months worth of oil. The New England Emporium only produces about 5 gallons a week in waste oil, and I need to be on top of servicing them or they’ll get someone else to do it. I’ve been that someone else too often in my day job.

Whenever I question the amount of work I put into veggie, I do a little math in my head to make me feel better. It takes me about three hours to strain 150 gallons of oil. It will still need to be run though a centrifuge, and will take approximately another six hours. Add another hour for picking up the oil from the restaurant (might be overshooting that a bit, but it makes for easier math). That means I’m rendering approximately 15 gallons of waste cooking oil into usable fuel each hour. Each gallon of waste cooking oil offsets one gallon of petroleum diesel, which is currently $4.20somethingish at the pump. Working one hour on veggie saves me $60ish dollars in fuel. I don’t make $60 an hour, so I think it’s a pretty good deal.

This math didn’t work so well on the bus trip. Not only did we not have a reliable filtering time, but we didn’t have a steady supply of oil. That made a huge difference. Finding oil was a big process, and took entire days. I think we figured out once that if we had each worked somewhere at minimum wage for the time we spent looking for oil, we could have just paid for diesel.

Anyway, after today, I’m just about ready for winter.