How do you folks survive up North?

Gunslinger808 said:
Naw, you folks are just crazy.:D
When tires fracture, pipes explode, the cows are found frozen solid, and my roof caves in from snow, it's time to move.

Good luck tonight, you all will need it!
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I'm going to walk my dog at the end of the first quarter of the game. It currently 1* and -21* windchill and temps are still headed downward. I don't believe I'll be "marking my territory" in the front yard tonight with the dog as usual.:rolleyes:

But, we don't get tire melting, cows spontaneous combusting, dust storms or do we have to use clay tile roofs. Besides it's a "dry" cold!!!!!

Thanks for the kind words, but this too shall pass!:)
 
-26 last night and never got above -12 today in St Paul. Think it's about -14 right now. These temps are from my digital thermometer. Don't know what they recorded at MSP airport and don't care because I don't live at the airport. To make matters worse, I got a head cold on Sunday & feel miserable. Think I'll just lay here in bed and plan a move South.
 
Gunslinger808 said:
I gotta ask, I've never lived North of the Mason Dixon, and can't imagine what a -10 or 20 degree high is like.
A lot of fun is made about our 120 summers, but at least if you're caught outside you can survive for a day or Two.
Caught outside (or if your power goes out) up there I can imagine your life span can be numbered in minutes.
What do you all heat with?
How do you keep your vehicles running?
What do all the really poor folk do?
I really have no idea of what it's like.
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Well Pilgrim, let me tell you. It is like this: It is COLD....

"Normally" the winters here in Eastern Iowa get down to zero or so once in a while.

However, when Canada and Alaska has a large excess of cold air (the politicians must have left town) they send it down to the midwest with a tailwind!!!

For heat and cool we have a geo-thermal system that works great - until temperatures get into the negative numbers!! Then the heat from the ground isn't so hot. Today I have my thermostat set on 69..............best the system can do is 61. So we have a couple of space heaters sitting around the TV room to help out.

Vehicles are kept inside the heated garage.

Really poor people get government money to pay for electricity, heat, food, etc. They make out better than the working folks.

The ones I really feel for on the homeless..........sleeping under a cardboard box in a alley must be bad on the best of days but with the temps hanging in the minus teens it must be life threatening.............
 
It's only -10 here. -25 wind chill. Supposed to get to -15 in the morning and 20 MPH winds....BUT the high tomorrow is +2!!!! :eek: Always something to look forward too! :)


fire.gif
 
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Old saying, "You don't have to like it, but you have to deal with it." Not crazy about winter, especially this one, but it's a trade off. Up here we don't have to deal with alligators, snakes, bugs big enough to ride and last, but not least, hurricanes. Snow storms like the one we've just had are a PITA, but after a day or two, walks and driveways are shoveled, streets are plowed and everything's pretty much back to normal. A hurricane, Katrina for example, one is all it takes. Given the choice, (and I never thought I'd ever say this), I'll take winter.
 
This was the Polar Plunge, a fundraiser for special Olympics last year. Some members from my FOP lodge were there. Doing it again next month. The guy in the pink TuTu (on him it was a FourFour) is the lodge President.

 
The hardest part of winter is cabin fever,but if you get out in it and ski or whatever,it can be fun.Especially when you come back in to the fire :-D
 
The winter of 1959/1960 I worked at a foundry in oshkosh wisconsin. My shift was 8 pm to 04:00 am. The foundry was hotter and dirtier than Hades.
The job involved knocking out castings out of sand, shoveling the sand up in a wheel barrel, take off running in probley a T-shirt of maybe at best a denim shirt all sweated up, picking up speed, hit steel free swinging double doors, fly outside to a sand pile and dump said wheel barrel. In other words sweating in somewhere around a 100 degrees and sprint outside to maybe -20 degrees! 4 am is the coldest time of the day or night. Thats when we got off and had to dig our our cars. But before that we took showers when we got off. Our faces were black with soot, all you could see was the whites of our eyes. We all helped each other get our cars fired up and moving.
That job was so dirty after a weekend off you were still blowing licorish looking snot. You farted soot! I was proud of that job. I was 18 years old and making real mans wages for the first time. About $2.40 a hour which was right at double to my previous real hard jobs! I got laid off to a large steel strike and went back to a tech school and the rest is history. I had a older cousin that also worked there for many years. They went bankrupt and I think he lost most of his retirement. It made me appreciate a good job when I got one!
 
No...just NO!
I'll wait for spring at least before I get in the pool.
Here's how it should be done, me trout fishing in May.

trout2.jpg
 
In my part of northern Ontario, we have had daytime highs in -30s F in the past week. At night, the temperature has been dropping below -40F and with wind chill factored in, it felt closer to -50.

We just had a mild spell with temperatures hovering a few degrees below freezing for a couple of days, but now we are back to frigid temperatures. Mind you, it hasn't been a particularly snow filled winter thus far as the snowbanks at the end of my driveway are only about 4ft high. However, 3 hours south of here, in my hometown, my parents have been dealing with huge amounts of snow. This past weekend, I shovelled their driveway and the banks were already 6ft high. They also just got really dumped on and woke up to snowdrifts of 4 to 7 feet in height in front of their house this morning.

For the most part, where I am, people heat with natural gas. Some older homes use heating oil, or even wood. A few unlucky souls rely on electric heating which is spectacularly expensive. Dealing with the cold means longjohns, mitts, warm hats, heavy coats and well insulated footwear. My daughter had to collect for,her paper route this afternoon, and with the sun going down, it got really cold, really fast, so I drove her around the neighbourhood. Her brother doesn't believe in dressing appropriately as it interferes with his Bieber hair (and for,the record, I can't stand Justin Bieber) and looking cool, so I am expecting to have to deal with him and frostbite at some point this winter.

http://www.simcoe.com/news-story/4301518-north-simcoe-winter-wonderland/
 
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Really poor people get government money to pay for electricity, heat, food, etc. They make out better than the working folks.
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No offense intended, but life damn sure ain't easy for those who can't work. Generalizations can be tricky.

My 64-year-old, 100% disabled sister lives on a less-than-$900-a-month Social Security Disability benefit. It's a few dollars too much, very few, for her to be eligible for food stamps. She lives in a HUD apartment for elderly and disabled people. Her heat, electricity and water are included, but she pays over a third of her disability check for the rent. She receives a few commodity foods, but not a lot.

I help her as I can, but I live on Social Security and a tiny pension. My wife's illness and death took what little I had for retirement.

I don't think either of us is doing "better than the working folks". I'm sure not doing as well as when I could work, and I retired five years ago at 71 for health reasons only. I worked for fifty-five years.

Not a real advantageous position compared to those who can still earn a living.
 
It's -31 here with the wind chill, but broiler makers and the Collage Football Championship game make me feel toasty and warm....
Thank you Mister Beam.
 
It's -10 right now in my part of Iowa. That's about the time we put on long sleeves.:D
Actually this is not really " cold". More like " fresh".
I remember February 3rd, 1996. That was the day of my Grandmothers funeral. That morning at my acreage it was -36.:eek:
That was COLD.
We did not have a graveside service.
Jim
 
I'll be honest with you Southern Boys...I'll take 20 degrees over 120 anyday. I'll take 20 degrees over 90 even...you gotta know how to stay warm, its easy to keep warm but tough to cool off. I hate it when I break a sweat just sittin in a chair in my boxers...forget that. I went to Dallas once with my wife, I stepped outside the hotel and it was 106 degrees with 98% humidity, it felt like a forest fire was chasing me down the street...and the bugs...you boys got bugs that will flat chase you across the street at night and critters that will eat you just walking across the lawn. Up North we hope for a real cold winter to kill off a good portion of the yallerjackets and other hornets, not to mention grasshoppers, otherwise we get pestered by them to no end.
Its tough on the homeless but as far as I'm concerned thats survival of the fittest and freezing to death is about as painless as drowning, you just go to sleep and wake up dead. Whereas dying from heat prostration or heat stroke is mighty painful til you finally shut off and kick the bucket. My wife went through heat stroke and it was pretty tough on her. I like it between 55 and 75, thats shorts and sandals weather for me and most of us around here, I know that winter temps for some Southernors but thats prime spring and fall weather around here, we only get a couple of weeks in the summer where it might get close to the 100s and thats when most of us are at the lake or enjoying our central air conditioning. My wife is from the Bay Area and it took her a couple of years to acclimate to the North and she still complains about the cold from time to time, I just tell her that she could put on a few pounds which would help her considerably and I wouldn't mind at all. On that subject I do look forward to the warmer weather in one regard, the girls take all their sweaters and coats off and the view gets by and large much better from that angle.
 
For me the worst part of this is not being able to trail ride with the atv. Its a big part of why we retired here. Lots of people here have snowmobiles but my wife wouldnt go for that. This last year was a drag as the wife has been laid up with foot surgery going on to a year and we only hit the trails a few times. Maybe I will have to take up shooting.
 
Steve O said:
I moved from Minnesota to Texas.
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For the win

but to give real answers ...
engine block heaters, battery blankets and sometimes starting fluid to get em running ... a chunk of cardboard to block the radiator can help keep em running. Also let it run for a while. I always waited till I saw the temp needle come off the peg before I'd even think about putting it in gear.

at home .... fire ... we like fire ... lots of fire .. and kittens ... never underestemate the value of a litter of kittens when you are the cuddle pile.

sanity ... not a whole lot you can do to keep it.
Sometimes I think Wisconsins history of serial killers is due to the winters ...
 
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