I love winter, without a doubt my favourite season.
However, this year, for the first time, I'm not sad to kick her out the door.
For one thing, she's not been very faithful this year, coming and going as she pleases.
From muddy days to snowstorms, it's been a tempestuous relationship at best. She often created treacherous road conditions and left my dog and cat to bathe in mud.
Most of all, however, this year particularly, I wasn't ready for the high maintenance she requires.
As you may be aware, I moved back to the Cariboo this winter. To be clear, I've lived here before and knew exactly what to expect of lady winter here and, if anything, the place I moved from (Ottawa), arguably has a more difficult relationship with lady winter where she frequently gets in a mood and throws ice storms around.
No, rather, my level of unpreparedness was twofold: I had not lived in a house heated almost solely by wood and secondly, the house I moved into was poorly insulated at best.
The first, was problematic because, being gone up to 11 hours a day, the fire wouldn't last long enough. Now that my wife has moved back, this is no longer a concern. Being nine months pregnant, she's at home and makes sure the fire keeps going.
Additionally, I rather enjoy the added physical relationship I now have with lady winter by chopping wood. It's a good way to get in some exercise in addition to working off the anger of getting the paper back only to notice you've missed a period or comma.
The second and bigger issue is what really makes me pleased to see lady winter go. The house not being well insulated, something I'll fix before her next visit, means that on the coldest days, when it hits -30 or less, keeping the pipes from freezing has been a real concern, one neither the previous inhabitants or I succeeded in avoiding, although it only happened to me once:
I had the fire as high as it would go, the cabinets that contained water pipes had the doors open with a little electric heater in front of them and the taps were dripping.
Nonetheless, one of the bathrooms froze. The shower drain had frozen which was an easy fix as the tap still worked so between running the hot water and pouring salt in the drain, it was fixed in no time. The big problem was the tap on the sink. Worried the pipe might burst, I frantically tried to heat the bathroom up further. Rather than taking the wise approach, at least initially, of adding a second electrical heater from elsewhere in the house, I selected a fire proof container, put in one of the burning logs from the fire and brought that into the washroom.
Within minutes it was clear this was a very bad idea as the house filled with smoke. My dog started running around frantically as she thought she was about to burn to death and multiple fire alarms started going off. Removing the fire, as it was in a fire proof container, was a two-second fix. Removing the smoke was not, as opening the windows would only aggravate the freezing pipe situation.
Ultimately, using additional electrical heaters the pipes thawed no problem.
However, until the insulation on my house is fixed I'm happy to see lady winter go and am ready for an affair with spring.