They were having breakfast with what I thought was strawberry jam, but don’t know if they grew them or bought them.
I thought the part about having to run out to the outhouse was wild. Since they don’t have running water they have to hit the outside facilities. Yow…
Also for the same reason they only take a shower once a week in a sauna type bath house. Takes 5 hours to get it hot enough in there with a wood heater. I imagine running from the bath house to the house is quite, um, invigorating…
many years ago when I lived in Minnesota it was COLD! I recall -32 for a week. Then it went to zero and it felt so warm I walked outside to get my mail from the mailbox with no coat on. Zero felt warm after that week. Went to Kansas City for a trade show just after that and laughed hard when NOBODY outside at the airport. Only me. They reached zero degrees and it was BIG news on their tv stations.
Big stories about staying protected from the cold. It was a record cold snap for them and many had their water pipes freeze up.
I then realized people actually do get acclimated to living in the cold. I suppose in Siberia it is just another winter day for them, no big deal. Plug in the engine block heater, put on the Will Steager mukluks and make the best of it.
Thankfully I bought some super cold weather clothing from a specialty place in Ely, Minnesota when I lived in Minnesota. They enabled me to go ice fishing even when it was -17. Granite Gear mits and gloves are the BEST.
when living in very cold climates you really do appreciate the warmth of the sun and windless days. why we start walking outside with no jacket at 50f in the spring. feels like 70 in the summer as your blood is thickened from the winter as my grandfather used to say.
I spent about two years in Kansas City in 1982-84, I was going to tech school there. That last winter was so cold, there was snow on the ground for a month, I hated it. I swore if I got a job it’d be in a warmer location than that. The job counselor at the school asked the three locations I was interested in working so I put Texas, Arizona and northern California. I got a job in the DFW area and stayed there for 30 years.
Thought I’d never leave, yet here I am now in Kentucky…
Yeah, I imagine if you had to spend a few summers in Texas it’d would’ve been rough on you. I developed a tolerance for it, but I also grew up in Oklahoma so not a big difference.
The heat + humidity here seems worse, plus the cold seeps into your bones. Maybe I’m just getting old…
spent 2.5 years stationed at white sands missile range, N.M in the early 90’s. it wasn’t bad as long as you were in the shade. very low humidity. was about 20 mi.west of El paso, T.X. of course i was thin and fit back then so high temps didn’t bother me as much as now.
February 2015, the daily highs never made it above 0°F here, and nightly lows were between -20°F and -35°F. I was working overnights then, and was outside for most of my shifts. Learned real quick to stay out of the wind. Im sure we had close to -50°F wind chills some nights.
Wow, I can’t imagine having to be out in temps like that, that can be dangerous if you’re not careful.
That may have been the same time we had our coldest temps since we moved here ten years ago. Our water line decided to bust after we had two nights below zero, the worst was -14F. That was fun laying under the house first repairing the break, then spending all the next day trying to thaw out the line. To prevent future freezes, I wrapped the water line in insulation. Haven’t had a problem since.
Yes, lots and lots of dead Leyland cypress trees dead from Lexington to Corbin that year.
Kansas City leaves an impression. It is one of the best places in Kansas weather wise. Believe me when i say out West it is so much worse than you can imagine. I was in Colby once for weeks in the winter. I was much younger and much tougher than i am now. The radiator froze and it had antifreeze protection to -30F. The wind never stopped blowing.
Relatively speaking I don’t think it’s cold at all where I’m at which is Kentucky. We’ve had about one week of what constitutes as winter the rest is like a mixture of spring and fall. People will still complain that we’ve had a long brutal winter makes me wonder where they were at during the winter of 77 and 78 when the Ohio River froze over.
Never heard such a tree. What happened, were the temps just too cold for them or were they coming out of dormancy? Nevermind they’re evergreens, so I guess they don’t go dormant?
Edit: just looked them up online, they look more like a cedar tree to me.
They’re a super tree in the hot humid red clay of Carolina or Georgia. Zone pushing in Kentucky.
'till the bagworms get to them.
I’ve planted some Murray cypress, Cupressus x ovensii, which are supposed to be very similar to Leyland, but with a slightly different parentage (Mexican cypress instead of Monterrey cypress) which should make them more resistant. So far they’re looking and behaving very much like Leyland though the foliage and form is ever so slightly different.
We’ll see in twenty years if the disease and pest resistance is actually any better. I should probably drop in a few Leyland cypresses just for comparison.
It is a fast growing cypress (often grown as a ‘spite’ fence. They have very shallow root systems. Not a strong tree.
Yeah, in the hills of Kentucky and nearby places…much prefer hemlock trees myself.
(Of course, there is the adelgids to be concerned about.)
I did -36F. I waited a few minutes before I went duck hunting that morning. But, I was young and the ducks were waiting, so I didn’t hesitate too long 
Was that in Nebraska? The real question is is would you do that now??
On a sorta related note, when it gets below 40 on a regular basis, I break out the long john bottoms, below 20 the tops. Me no likey the cold…
We have a big hemlock by our old house, it really makes a mess with the cones getting in the gutter. It really needs to be trimmed back as its branches droop a bit on our phone lines.
Yes. I have some health issues now that would probably prevent doing that now. But I do a short walk every morning as long as it’s not too windy or too much snow on the ground. I don’t mind below 0F for that. The body adjusts.