Every day begins with a read out of the temperature and wind speeds. This morning at 6 am the outdoor temperature was -4'F. with a wind speed of 4 kph. An hour later the temperature had dropped to -17'F. After my morning meditation I pulled on my bunny boots and slipped into my parka. I went outside and walked across the drifts dusted with a fine sugary powder. In the east, there was a pink smudge where the sun was obscured by low clouds and freezing fog. This tender blush of color, unusual to the eye that has adapted to a typically horizon-less white, was touched with a familiar insight subdued; that dawn, in the lower latitudes will yield a spectacular spectrum of colors. This hushing orb of damask rose sat out in the distance just above the snow like a single giant thing. We shared our presences and disappeared, I into the garage, it into the fog.
The "gen shack" is a modular container unit about 15' long by 7 feet wide. It sits inside the first half of the garage tent. Inside the gen shack is the power plant, totally self contained.
I look around inside at all the gauges that make up the waste heat system, at the online engine, at the temperature inside the module, at the fuel level and then I navigate through the soft key screen for the information I need to log from the generator's interface program.
Once I am sure that all systems are well, I go back over the the Green house and read the sight glass on the water tank. The Green House has a 200 gallon capacity water tank plumbed directly from the snow melter which is located just outside of the gen shack. By gravity feed, the water runs through plumbing in insulated arctic piping called, Bondstrand, which is buried deep beneath the snow. To complement the insulating properties of the snow, there is also wired, heat trace; imagine an extension cord that does nothing else but create resistive loads high enough to safely generate heat.
If the tank is low, I simply open a ball valve and let the water fill the tank. This takes a few moments, so I usually sit down upon the stoop in the mechanical room and stare at the wall and think.
The next run is over to the Big House to check on the water status there. The water tank in the BH has a 400 gallon capacity, but this one requires a pig in order to fill it, which is pulled over behind the tractor once a week. The "Pig" is simply a 200 gallon tank mounted to a Nansen sled (think wood and sinew and Polar expeditions) with an electric pump. The "Pig" got it's name from the original mobile water sled which had been covered with spray foam insulation ( giving a most dimply surface effect) and painted pink. Since then, a snout and a tail has been added to the original "Pig", but as this old "Pig' now leaks, its duties are reserved for parades.
After the rounds, I find something that is generally working well, break it and begin diagnosing what went wrong with it after it and I had our confrontation. Usually it is something that I have asked, politely, to come out of hibernation in order to do work in sub zero temperatures.
Snow machines, snow blowers, fuel oil heaters, fuel pumps, electric pumps, door ways, and sleds all seem to suddenly wish they had never signed up for high latitude service. In order to get closer to the tropical desires they yearn for (I blame disillusionment on the snow blower for this one) they refuse to work; guaranteeing a tow or a lift inside.
After work we work out, eat, discuss the day, talk about our dreams for home, or anywhere warm, and go to bed with our books.
All night I am tuned into the hum of the online generator. I is nothing like being lulled to sleep by the waves. It is like being a cross country trucker with an autopilot waiting for an oncoming car.
Eventually I doze off. In the morning, instead of birds and leaves and insects or laundry flapping or chickens scratching there is the sound of the engine purring away.
And maybe a pink blur, warming in the east..............
