it is not easy to crawl out of the sleeping bag in the morning when the temperature gauge is reading 10 degrees at sunrise. the fire in the stove had died out sometime in the night and the cabin was cold...the cabin is a summer shelter and does not have any winter insulation, and we were feeling that. a cold wind was blowing hard right thru camp from the northeast. the cabin is well sheltered from the west by a hill to its rear, but on the seldom off chance that a strange wind blows in from the north, or east, it rips thru the camp and chills to the bone.
once the fire was going and coffee was on the stove we worked at stuffing any openings with foam we had found in the shed. any light i could see peaking thru the cracks in the logs or the chinking were stuffed with foam, or anything else i could find to block out the wind from sweeping thru the cabin.
we decided to spend our day harvesting wood and creating a back-stock that we could draw from if we needed to or skipped a day of cutting and splitting. so we loaded up our sleds with the chainsaw that we had hauled out from MISSINIPE along with the bucksaw, a de-limbing tool and the ax and pulled them across the bay in front of the cabin to a beautifully sheltered and quiet low land. it had plenty of large wind and deadfall sitting above the snow that we could easily harvest for our barrel stove.
we spent most of the day cutting spindles into four foot sections that we would haul back to camp to cut into smaller rounds and then split. it is an enjoyable task that can hardly be described as work and our saws and axes make it quick work.
with our wood pile swelling and bodies tiring, we decided a shower before dinner would be appreciated by both of us...we dug out the fire grate in front of the cabin and started a fire to heat up the water. the shower is set up outside and was fully exposed to the blowing wind cutting across the lake. we tried to block some of the wind by rigging up a tarp across the front and it helped, minimally...once the water was the perfect temperature i carried the two steaming pails over to the shower platform, stripped down as quickly as i could, poured the water into the five gallon plastic bucket that we had punched holes into the bottom of to create our 'shower head' and hoisted the bucket above my head, resting it on the overhead spindles. by the time i had gotten the bucket above me, it was nearly half empty! i panicked and fumbled with the slippery soap. i lathered up and the water ran out. i pulled the plastic bucket down, filled it up again as quick as i could and got it back up above me as the cold wind tried to freeze the water as it came down on me. i had barely begun to rinse off the soapy lather when the last of the water ran out. still soapy, i put on my wool pants and jacket and ran like a person possessed thru the snow, back to the cabin and the roaring fire inside...