When we went to bed on December 27th, it was -34C outside. But, when we got up the next morning, the temperature had risen overnight to -24C. I went out in the morning and plugged in both vehicles, started a fire in the guest cottage, and brought in some firewood. By the time I finished all that the temperature had risen further to around -20C. It felt like a heat wave... almost tropical... after the temperatures of the last few days. The only good thing about this cold snap is that it should set back the advance of the Mountain Pine Beetles.
I let the fire burn in the guest cottage for an hour or two and then went over to try and do some work. It was about -18 inside when I started the fire and two hours later it had only made it up to about -12. I brought out another hundred aspen boards for the second half of the high ceiling and wanted to start lacquering them. But when I applied the water based lacquer to the boards, it almost froze on contact. Eventually by mid afternoon the outside temperature got up to around -16, and I got the inside temperature up to around zero or plus one. I managed to get a few boards finished with lacquer. Hopefully it dries properly in the cold temperatures. These boards will be used up high on the ceiling so if the finish is not perfect, no one will be able to tell. Now that I have the deep chill out of the guest cottage, hopefully it will be faster and easier to get the place warmed up tomorrow.
We left both vehicles plugged in for a few hours, and then started them in the late afternoon. My truck hadn't run since the drive out on December 23rd, and Margarit's hadn't run since she went to the candlelight church service with Hailey and my Mom on Christmas Eve. But they both started fine and we took them out for a spin to make sure the batteries stayed charged up.
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