Holiday locking (or unlocking)

[WifeIsVanilla]

I agree with ARK.

I lived most of my life in NJ, and I disliked the winters more and more as I aged.

Over the years that I lived there, I had to go to New Hampshire several times during the winter on business trips, and I was shocked by how brutally colder it was. OMG!! How do you stand it!!

I now live in central NC, and I LOVE the mild winters. We average 1 inch of snow per year, and I can play golf year round.

[Lockedchef]

Ok so I grew up in Buffalo, Ny in the 80s with that damn lake effect snow. That's some shit when you get 6 feet in 48 hours, that's fucking cold. Moved to Arkansas in the 90s and saw snow half a dozen times, no more then a couple inches, and the entire state goes berserk. Been in South Florida for 20 years now and it was in the 80s today. I don't miss the cold at all

[WifeIsVanilla]

Ok so I grew up in Buffalo, Ny in the 80s with that damn lake effect snow. That's some shit when you get 6 feet in 48 hours, that's fucking cold. Moved to Arkansas in the 90s and saw snow half a dozen times, no more then a couple inches, and the entire state goes berserk. Been in South Florida for 20 years now and it was in the 80s today. I don't miss the cold at all

Yeah, if it weren't for all of the NYC and Long Island refugees there, that's where I'd be.

[TwistedMister]

Watching the news this afternoon and they showed a picture of New Hampshire. It was snowing like crazy. Read your description of your winters. How do you function?

In the great state of Arkansas, it is currently a chilly 44F. Planning on grilling steaks, hamburgers and smoke sausages this evening.

You get used to it. The joke here is, "We got three seasons here- 'Winter', 'Mud Season', and 'Preparing For Winter'." A lot of us have plow trucks, especially if your house is a long way off the road, some folks have tractors with buckets to move snow around. Smart folks have at least one 4x4 with knobby mud/snow tires on it. Power grid goes down a lot especially in Winter, so a lot of us have generators as well, and at least one wood stove. I have a pellet stove and two wood stoves. Many, many people heat with wood here, oil and gas are too expensive when you're heating eight months of the year. Some people actually own two lots of land- the one their house sits on, and another of 40 or more acres called a 'wood lot' which is unimproved so taxes are low, even lower if you have a formal 'tree growth' plan, and is managed by selective cutting to provide fuel for your stoves. I bought a few tons of 'bio-bricks' for this Winter because I was still in rehab after Covid and didn't have the strength or energy to be cutting and splitting wood during the Summer.

You also learn to dress for the weather, you'll see a lot of people wearing LL Bean clothing, but it's not to be 'trendy', it's because it works. I start with a silk base layer, then a double-layer union-suit (one-piece thermal underwear with a hatch in the back so you don't have to take everything off to poop), a heavy-weight thermal Henley on top of that, followed by a turtle-neck and a wool shirt. Double-layer insulated jeans, maybe a sweater and/or a down vest, and a down parka for going outside. You can always take something off if you get too warm, but if you don't dress warm enough you're fucked- an out-of-state college kid went missing last year, was eventually found froze to death in a snowbank after a few too many drinks at the bar. Oh, yeah, boots- heavy (preferably waterproof) with thick felt liners and thick wool socks, ain't nobody making fashion-statements in Winter here, you don't want to let your feet get cold. At some point in Jan/Feb the temp will go down to about 25 below zero (sometimes a little lower, I think the record is about -50) and stay there for four to six weeks.

Smart folks keep a shovel in their vehicles, along with an emergency kit with food and a way to make fire. If you slide off the road it could be a long time before you get found. Every year some dumb people go missing and aren't found until Spring, some don't get found for years. I usually have at least two liquid-fueled lighters and wooden matches in a waterproof match-safe. It doesn't hurt to have a multi-tool like a Leatherman, a knife and a gun either. We have a few fair-sized cities but once you get outside of those it gets rural real fast. 98% of the state is forest and it can be many miles between towns. Hell, in the right (wrong) conditions it's possible to get lost in your own back yard- we had a fellow just this year, went out to check his game cameras and didn't make it back. He was lucky, someone noticed that he wasn't around and made a call- game wardens found him two days later, hypothermic, incapacitated and nearly dead...700 yards from his house. I keep a full EMT medical kit at the house, with everything from splints and bandages to scalpels sutures, needles and an oxygen bottle- if you get hurt around here you want to be able to do some things yourself, if you can, because if you need to dial 9-1-1 it could be anywhere from 1/2 hour to an hour and a half before anyone gets to you, no local cops, Sheriff's deputies don't come around much and the State cops announced last year that they would no longer patrol the area either. FD is 'volunteer', they have an ambulance but, frankly, it's quicker if you can stabilize yourself and get to the hospital on your own, you could easily bleed out before somebody gets the station unlocked. The FD is very good at saving foundations.

I grill and smoke year 'round, even below zero, cooking meat in a pan or oven is a rarity. Turkey goes in the oven because that's how the Mrs. likes it, but I'll smoke one every now and then. Sometimes do a beef stew or pot roast in the slow cooker but steaks, burgers, chops, chicken and sausages almost always go on the grill- meat kissed by fire and smoke tastes better. I have gas and charcoal/wood grills and a couple of charcoal/wood smokers, a Texas-style off-set and an upright 'bullet' type.

[TwistedMister]

OMG!! How do you stand it!!

I used to live a couple hundred miles south of here and I was amazed at the difference. At the old house the temps might get down to the teens but rarely ever hit zero. The first couple of years here were a bit of a shock but I eventually learned to deal with it. The Mrs. stayed at the old house the first two Winters, good thing too- she would have flipped out if she had been here while I was still getting the hang of it. The second Winter, the house froze up solid, didn't get above zero *inside* the house for a month and a half and the rest of the time it barely hit 42 degrees until Spring finally arrived. Had no running water for three months and a bunch of busted pipes to fix. I was sleeping on the floor, directly in front of the biggest wood stove with a down coat on and wrapped up in a sleeping bag...oh, that reminds me...the fire went out a few hours ago, I need to clean the stove and get it lit again...football is probably on too...need to get off my butt and do a few things...crap, I need to fill out the USDA farm survey too...frickin' gov't paperwork...

[WifeIsVanilla]

TM - OMG. All of that sounds like hell on earth to me, but to each their own.

A friend who lives in a snow belt near Syracuse, NY told me that their seasons were somewhat different than yours: early winter, mid winter, late winter and next winter.

[TwistedMister]

TM - OMG. All of that sounds like hell on earth to me, but to each their own.

A friend who lives in a snow belt near Syracuse, NY told me that their seasons were somewhat different than yours: early winter, mid winter, late winter and next winter.

Ah, it's not so bad once you learn to deal with it. I'm actually very susceptible to issues with cold, being tall and thin and having a touch of Reynaud's Syndrome. Even in Summer, if I go into an air-conditioned room my fingers and toes go numb so I have to take extra precautions. I've been to and lived/worked in some very warm places including FLA, TX, Mexico and Central America and enjoyed the heat when other people were suffering from it.

It didn't usually get this cold over on the coast when I was a kid, though I remember some mornings waking up with ice on the inside of the windows and not wanting to get out from under the down quilt until I knew that someone else had already got up and was getting the fire going in the kitchen range, I didn't realize that there was such a drastic difference between the coast and inland. I drove out of this state at 17, and I swore I'd never come back...but, here I am. I tried to convince the Mrs. to move to the Texas hill country, had 50 acres with a natural spring all picked out but she wouldn't go for it, too hot for her. So, when she showed me a real estate listing and said "Can we move here?" I jumped at it. I was getting real tired of living down near Boston, it was getting way too crowded, traffic was sucking worse and worse, neighbors were way too close and way too nosy.

I've got far more than I could ever have down there- nearly 100x as much land, 2x bigger house with a huge garage, surrounded by trees and can't see a single other house from any window (I can see lights, particularly when there are no leaves on the trees but that's it), a nice year-round creek with huge trout in it, enough acres clear for growing food, and don't need a hunting or fishing license. I can sit on my porch drinking coffee and shooting tin cans and nobody is going to say a word. Down at the old house, I got home from work one morning and took my jacket off before deciding to go out to the wood pile, a neighbor saw the gun on my hip and called the cops. I went back inside, got the stove going, then looked out the window to see about 20 cops with pistols, rifles and shotguns in my back yard. WTF? I put my jacket on and went out to see what was up, one of the cops was a kid I had gone to school with for a couple of years*- "Um, d'ya mind explaining just that the hell y'all think you're doing here?", he said "We got a call that there was a guy with a gun here"...he was very confused when I broke out laughing. "That was me, you dumb-asses."

*(File under 'it's a small world'- one of the instructors in my Police Combat Pistol course down there now lives on the other side of the road from me up here.)

To get back 'on topic', the cold while wearing a CD isn't bad, as long as you are dressed warmly enough...except for sitting on the downstairs commode- the water in there is cold enough to make your balls want to run and hide all the way inside.

[ARK]

Back the topic on hand

Wife is coming up in a few days for a Christmas party. Might get unlocked after the party if the wife is not too tired.

Go home Christmas Eve. Kids will be home so no playtime. Day after Christmas ritual, girls sit on the couch all day and watch the Hallmark channel. I will get up before dawn and go deer hunting for a day or two. Rest of my time off will be working in the yard and doing honey do’s.

Go back to work before the kids go back to school.

[DrPinotNoir]

I got let out Friday night for sex.
Sunday morning she woke me up and said. Your cage is going on before the kids come down and open presents.

Usually I get let out friday and locked back up Monday. She just permanently took away a day. I think She might lock me up right after sex this week. My behavior out of the cage was a bit silly this week and was a direct correlation to me being unlocked. I have to go to the office 2 days this week. Im 50/50 on if she will let me go to work unlocked. She has been sending me most of the time without unlocking.

[Sam3655]

Spent it locked and still locked as I have been for the last 15 days. Next Monday is the next time I can try for a release.