Author: Glitch

6 years, 2190 days, 52,560 hours

6 years, 2190 days, 52,560 hours.
That’s the amount of time that has passed since March 28th, 2018, sometime in the mid-afternoon.

As many of you now know I was highly suicidal then. That afternoon my life changed.
I found a “therapist” via a google search that proposed something different Contextual-Conceptual Therapy (suicidetherapy.com). And I reached out for help.

I can never quite put it in words, because words don’t always convey what we experience fully.
If I try to use words, it is like this. The last 2190 days have been wonderous, beautiful, sad, joyful, rapturous, centered, grounded, scary, full of gratitude and calm.

I remember walking into F’s office that day and on a large piece of poster board resting against the wall was this quote.
“There is another world, and it is this one.”
― Paul Éluard

I remember reading those words and wondering “what am I not seeing?”.
Sometimes we can’t see what is right in front of us. The stories we tell ourselves create a certain sort of veil before our eyes that limits our perception.
But the thing is we can’t know what we aren’t seeing. How do you see something that you are blind to?

The stories I had been telling myself about who I was and why I was like that were written in bold capital letters across the landscape of my mind.

Looking back, I can now see that what I was experiencing was an inside job, something I was doing to myself for 48 years. The same stories repeated over and over and over and over. Imprinted on my mind, blurring my vision, causing me to be something I was not, I was an illusion, a ghost.

Since that fateful day I have had 52,560 hours of being different. Maybe not so much different, but I am, now who I am.

I have experienced things that had I followed through with my plans of suicide, would have never come to be.

  • I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to travel halfway around the globe to attend my oldest son’s wedding.
  • I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to live where I now do, on an island in the middle of a forest surrounded by nature.
  • I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to adopt an elderly dog who is now my constant companion and friend.
  • I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to reconnect with some of my oldest friends.
  • I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to tell my family and friends that I love them.

All of that would have never happened for me.

Thank you all for being part of my life.
Life is beautiful. If you are struggling reach out for help.

I Love You All.

K

One Year of Solitude

So its been about a year since I moved to the island. A year of quiet, solitude, observing nature, introspection, and change.

No sirens
No constant drone of the city
No solicitors

Owls
Bats
Birds
The smell of the earth and the forest

I have spent quite sometime looking at the nature of myself, loneliness, and solitude.

It isn’t always easy, in fact its sometimes outright terrifying.

Being alone by choice has been illuminating, it has shown me who I am, my wants and desires, my fears and joys. When there is no one around to converse with, you end up conversing with yourself a lot. When there is no one around to blame you realize that everything is you. Sometimes I try and blame the dog, but then I remember that its just me.

This reminds me of a story

The Empty boat
A monk decides to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He takes his boat out to the middle of the lake, moors it there, closes his eyes and begins his meditation. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly feels the bump of another boat colliding with his own. With his eyes still closed, he senses his anger rising, and by the time he opens his eyes, he is ready to scream at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation. But when he opens his eyes, he sees it’s an empty boat that had probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake. At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization, and understands that the anger is within him; it merely needs the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever he comes across someone who irritates him or provokes him to anger, he reminds himself, “The other person is merely an empty boat. The anger is within me.”

There are so many empty boats floating about. When out of nowhere, one broadsides me, I laugh because I know its only me.

I Don’t Have Time for This

 

Yesterday someone posed a question to me.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

After hearing this I laughed and thought, completely, utterly and yet not at all.

First off what is time?
According to Merriam-Webster

Time – noun
1 The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues.
2 A nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future.

There are 12 other definitions for time according to Merriam-Webster.
And that just when it’s a noun.
It can also be used as a verb and an adjective.

Any idea what the most used noun is in the English language?

TIME

We are addicted to it, clocks, schedules, dates, when, past, future, and present.

It’s how we define accomplishment, it’s how we measure our progress, it’s how we determine when to do this or that.

Let’s go back in time to the original question.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

When I was suicidal, time for me was an avalanche, a crushing, swirling mass of confusion and suffering.
The past had collected high on the mountain top of my psyche and had suddenly come crashing down upon me.
My failures, regrets, and longings. Which then turned the perceived present into a disaster.

The idea of past, present and future are key.

Past being the things we perceive as happening before now.
Present is the NOW, which I could argue doesn’t exist, I’ll get to this in a moment.
Future is the space where the present hasn’t formed yet.

On the idea that the present doesn’t exist. I remember reading a while back that it takes us around 1/10th of a second to process what is happening now.

If our mind takes 1/10th of a second to process the environment around us we are responding to things that happened in the past. What we perceive as now is actually the past.

As I went through reassembling the pieces of myself buried under the avalanche of my mind, I became lightly obsessed with time.
It wasn’t so much that I started searching for it, but it came to me, and I dove in headfirst.

The first thing I read was
The Order of Time – Carlo Rovelli
Then came
Each Moment is the Universe – Dainin Katagiri
Then
Being-Time – Shinshu Roberts
Oh and I can’t forget
Einstein’s Dreams – Alan Lightman

Each of these dealt with time and out perception of it, what it is and what is actually happening from a different perspective.
Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist.
Dainin Katagiri was a Sōtō Zen priest and teacher.
Shinshu Roberts is co-founder and teacher of Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, CA.
Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur.

Let’s go back in time to the original question.
“How has your relationship to the concept of TIME changed (if it has) since not being suicidal?”

After the avalanche, my relationship and understanding of time became something other.

If we assume past, present and future are separate things. If we lug around the past like a big old steamer trunk full of psychological detritus, we end up polluting the present with this overflowing garbage and thus changing the future to look a hell of a lot like the past.
This assumes time is a continuum, past precedes present and future succeeds the present and the past.

What if they don’t behave like that. What if they all happen at the same TIME: Past, Present and Future all coalesced into something other.

Is the idea of the past just a memory?

If we can remember the past, why can’t we remember the future?

Maybe that’s what we need to do, remember the future and not remember the past. Or maybe even remember the NOW
Maybe the past isn’t what we think it is, after-all we all have heard that eye-witness testimony is not that great. And who is that witness anyway?
“The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.””

What do your puzzle pieces look like? Are they even all pieces of the same puzzle?
Are you assuming your disparate puzzle pieces actually are a video recording?

So, what is my relationship to TIME now?

The metaphor of the avalanche is no more.
I now stand at the edge of a calm mountain lake. I can see the reflections of all that surrounds me on the glimmering surface of the water. It’s a place of calm and quiet.

Love and Loss

It’s been a hard few weeks. Being open about this is hard, it exposes a lot about me.
Six weeks ago, I stepped away from a relationship I had been in for the past 4 years.
Failure, fear of being alone, the what if’s, did I end it too soon, was I not strong enough?
Failure: I gave up, I couldn’t try to make it work any longer.
Fear of being alone: This is a paradox, I enjoy being alone, but in that joy is fear.
The “what if’s”: What if I could change, what if she could change? What if I just tried harder?
Did I end it too soon?: I have never given up on me, why should I give up on us.
Strength: Was I not strong enough to keep going?
My greatest fears. Being alone, being unloved, being misunderstood.
For the first month I didn’t let myself feel anything about the relationship. I know I make poor decisions when I’m emotionally elevated and so I chose to compartmentalize my feelings for a while. Now I am letting myself feel things about what transpired. It’s not easy and a lot of those fears spring up and make me question things. That’s OK, I believe that in examining these fears I come to know and understand them and grow through them.
Dealing with love and loss is never easy, but we do grow through it and come to understand ourselves and others better through that process.
Wherever you are out there, I love you and I know you will find happiness.

So far

Where to start?
I guess I could start at the beginning and tell you all about the traumas and PTSD, my failings and grievances.
I think ill start by telling you where I am now.

I live in the forest on Orcas Island, in the middle of a nature preserve. I am surrounded by the eagle, the deer, the owl.
I’ve been here for 9 months now and each day I awake to a new wonder, the unfolding and ever changing splendor of nature.
Recently I adopted a 12 year old shepherd/husky mix, she spends the days napping and chasing birds or the occasional raccoon.
Over these 9 months I have witnessed the land go from Fall to Winter to Spring. Seeing the forest slowly go from a vibrant green to a sullen grey as winter arrived only to emerge now in a vibrant explosion of verdant green. This makes me think of how life is somewhat the same. We go from times of joy and happiness, to times of pain and suffering and if we can just sit be with ourselves in the times of pain and suffering and listen to life, we can yet again come back to times of joy and happiness. Its in the darkness that we begin to understand the dichotomy of existence, that we find the light.

Over the course of my 53 years I have been an addict, an alcoholic, and suicidal, among other things. I came out of the grips of addiction in my late 20’s, many years later I went to rehab for alcohol addiction, 6 years ago I had decided that taking my own life was a good solution to life.

I had arrived in a place where life didn’t make sense anymore, where the pain and suffering was too overwhelming to even bear any longer. I wrote “suicide letters” to the people who I felt needed an explanation, I had put my financial affairs in order, so that my 2 young sons would be taken care of. In a few days I would end it all.

Then a curious thing happened.

I could not get the thought out of my mind, that if what I was experiencing was real, then wouldn’t everyone eventually commit suicide?
I accidentally found a “suicidologist”, yes there are therapists who only deal with suicidal ideation, this was a surprise to me.
I filled out the online form on the website I had found and 20 minutes later I received a text on my phone from a “suicidologist”, I’ll call this person “F” . This was a Wednesday, I had an appointment Saturday with death. He said he could meet me Friday. What did I have to lose?

In short, I didn’t make it to my Saturday appointment with death. I’m still here. I see and experience myself and the world in a very different way. I am alive. Finally.

Over the course of 4 months I saw “F” twice a week, each session was 2 hours long. During that time we delved into the depths of my soul, we peered into the darkness, we examined the light. For so much of my life I had always been rewarded for being logical and analytical. These were the swords I had fallen upon. Using play, curiosity and imagination was the prescription I was now given.
It was up to me to fill the prescription.

During many of my trials and tribulations I felt utterly alone, shut off, isolated, mired in my own despair.
Each time I hit “rock bottom” I somehow knew I needed help. There was a small voice in me that said “reach out, ask for help”
I am so glad I listened.

I have been at MCG for 14 years now. Looking at that number I am surprised, its half of my professional career. During my tenure at MCG I have had to use FMLA twice, once for alcohol addiction, once for when I became suicidal. Of course I could feel shame and guilt over that. But I don’t, I feel nothing but gratitude. The management team at MCG has always “had my back”, they have supported me in whatever I was going through. MCG has created a family, a support system, a place where we all support each other without judgement. MCG is a model for how to create a caring workplace.

I feel that I have been given a gift. My own life.
In my spare time I work with people who are struggling, who can find no way out. If I can help just one person alter the course of their life, that’s all I ask for.

I’ll end this with a quote.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away” – Pablo Picasso

 

 

 

So, I Adopted a Wolf

I recently made the decision to adopt a senior dog. I thought about it a lot for the past few months. I was thinking of initially getting a puppy, but then I realized that is a long-term commitment. That brought up all kinds of things for me.

“Kurt, you struggle with sharing the same space with other people for the long term.”
“Kurt, you haven’t had any relationship last more than 3-5 yrs in the past many years.”
” What if you get fed up and tired of the puppy a few years in?”
“You already surrendered one dog many years ago because you didn’t make time for her.”

And on and on. The internal dialog was quite an interesting thing to observe and experience.

I ended up adopting Snow, a 12-year-old Shepherd Husky mix. She is a great girl.

Slightly aloof at times. Just like me

Sometimes pays attention to what others are saying, other times acts like she never heard anything you said. Just like me

She prefers sleeping outside. Just like me

Loves to sit outside and watch the birds. Just like me

Over the past few days, Snow has taught me a few things:
How to be more present in each moment.
How to observe something other than myself and pay attention to body language.
How to let something else be in my space and just let it be. “Sure sleep outside if you want, even though I would like you to sleep inside.”, ” Oh you want me to come outside right now even though I don’t want to. What do you have to show me?”
How when we go for one of our many walks every day, too listen and see what’s around us. Not thinking of tomorrow or what to do next. To enjoy the walk for what it is.

In a way, I guess what I was looking for was a teacher, a guru, a dog guru.

I adopted a wolf.

Which reminds me of a story!

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

 

 

The Run

For the last 4 years, I have run the “Ancient Lakes Trail Run”
I have done the 10K 3 times now and the 25K once. I ended up really liking the 10K as a test of where I am at each year with my fitness and health.
I don’t have the desire to run the other distances for various reasons, like the time needed for training and the fact that I have the predisposition to overdo it. If you know me, you know what I mean.

Here are my times for the 10K’s

2021 – 1:10:31
2022 – 1:09:26
2023 – 1:03:09

In 2021 I trained fairly well, and I was fairly happy with the result. In 2022 I was about 1 minute faster than the year before. I figured if I could cut off a minute each year, I would eventually finish before I started when I’m 120 years old or whatever.
Seven months ago, after moving to the island, I started wondering, could I cut more than a minute off my 2023 10K time?

I thought about it for a while and decided that I would hire a trainer to get both my diet dialed in and to push me physically to a new level of fitness. My goal was to shave 10 minutes off my 10K time.

“If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small.” – Azim Premji

Even I was laughing at my goal.

I thought about it and ended up hiring Chris Holt, I had followed him on Instagram for some time, and it seemed like a good match. I liked his thoughts on training, eating, and mental health.

After looking at my diet and fueling, we removed anything with added sugar, all gluten/wheat, legumes, and packaged foods.
For what seemed like my entire life, I had struggled with stomach issues. Once we removed these things, my gut became way more healthy, no more constant farting. Again if you know me, you know what I mean

What I eat on a daily basis looks like this. I eat 2 meals, one around 11 am and another at 5 pm.

1st meal.
One apple diced and poached in water with a section of cinnamon stick and a few whole cloves. I add to this some blueberries and yogurt with a teaspoon or so of honey.
3 eggs
1/2 an avocado
A small portion of meat

2nd meal
1/4-1/3 of a pound or so of meat/liver/heart/fish
a large helping of vegetables sauteed in ghee
rice or potatoes.

Its basically a ketogenic diet with some extra carbs.

Over the course of the 6 months of training, I dropped about 8.5 lbs of weight.

For training, it ended up looking like this

Monday – AMRAP, fast 3 mile run.
Tuesday – AMRAP, Sled pulls
Wednesday – AMRAP, run 6-7 miles slow
Thursday – AMRAP, Sled pulls
Friday – AMRAP
Friday or Saturday – 8-10 mile trail run

Everything was going great, 2 months ago, I was running sub 7min miles on my Monday fast run. The diet was going great, and things were really clicking. Then I started dealing with a hernia I have had for many years. It was getting worse. I have surgery scheduled for next week, but that is a whole other story.

6-7 weeks ago, I started tapering down my runs and workouts, a short time after I started tapering my left calf started seizing up, it was so tight sometimes it hurt to run. This is where I started to get really frustrated. I had spent the last months training for this one thing, I was stronger and faster than ever. Why, now when I am tapering, is this happening? Am I even going to be able to run the race?

I ran twice in the last month, and did a few AMRAPs here and there, but mostly took it very easy.

A week before the race, I was pissed off, my leg was so angry that I didn’t think I was going to be able to run. I reached out to a friend here on the island looking for a massage therapist or PT. He recommended a massage therapist. A week before the race, she opened her office on a Saturday just to see me. She worked on me for 90 minutes, I scheduled another session on Wednesday. Wednesday, she worked on me for another 90 minutes. On the way home that night I stopped at the local grocery and bought a few CBD chocolate bars. CBD can act as a muscle relaxant. I ate some before bed each night, Wednesday through Friday. By Saturday morning, my leg was 99% better than it had been. I decided to give it a go.

I was running the 10K with my good friend Bob. He is an amazing runner. We have run Ancient Lakes for the last few years, and it’s sort of a tradition now.

Out of the gate, Bob took off like a greyhound, I kept pace with him for the 3/4 mile or so then I slowed it down a notch or 3.
Overall I was feeling strong, moving well, and really enjoying it. I don’t run with a watch or anything, so I never have any idea how fast I am moving or what time it is. I usually listen to Buddhist mantras as I run, and for this race, I was doing that, I have a fairly good idea of how long each track is, so I do get some idea of timing, but it’s not perfect.

The first 4 miles went off without a hitch, I didn’t really feel like I was moving any faster than last year. The last 2 miles are fairly fast once you start the descent back to the finish line. I was moving well, but not at 100%. My left leg started having issues.
A mile out from the finish, my left knee decided to scream at me. Dammit, am I gonna have to walk the last mile?
Then out of nowhere, another runner passed me. We had been passing each other off and on the whole time. As she passed, she said, “Finish strong”, I remember thinking, “My knee is going to explode if I do that.”

I slowed way down. DAMMIT!, why now?
I could see my “finish strong” friend a ways ahead of me and decided I would pass her.

My leg was killing me, only about a half mile to the finish line. As we entered the final stretch, I could see “finish strong” ahead of me. I could also see the timing display 1:02:31. I remember thinking is that right? “Close the gap, Kurt”, I kicked it up a bit. As I passed her, she whispered, “wanna race” at me, “I don’t have anything left,” was my thought. I kicked it into overdrive. I was now a few strides ahead of her, then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her gaining on me. We crossed the finish line at exactly the same time, 1:03:09.

While I didn’t ever expect to hit my 10-minute goal (I set it that high for a reason). I am ecstatic with my performance given the challenges of the last few weeks, a leg that was angry, and a hernia that was getting worse.

So in closing, set insane goals for yourself, persevere even when you want to give up and be open to all outcomes. KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

Thank you to Chris Holt my trainer, and Bob for always goading me on to do better and to “finish strong” for pulling me through the last part of the race.

And also a Thank You to all of you. If you are reading this, I presume you are part of my life in some way or another. Thanks for being along for the ride!

 

 

 

 

Solitude

I have started noticing the nearly imperceptible shifts of the seasons, the comings and goings of time upon the land. Each day brings a new change to this place, the Canary grass is just a bit taller, and the deer frequent the pond now to eat and drink. The return of my winged friends each morning as the sun crests the hill. The frogs have started singing late into the evening as I drift off to sleep.

When I lived elsewhere, I barely noticed the changes. The business of city life created a veil over my senses that blinded me to the subtle shifts of the earth, of how the cycles of life unfold all around us.

The quietness and calm create a song all its own, hidden amongst the trees and rocks. Sometimes it’s so quiet that all I can hear is the ringing in my ears. I have had tinnitus for what seems like forever, and I wonder if I truly know what quiet sounds like. With no background noise, planes, cars, leaf blowers, and the other music of modern society, quiet for me can become deafening in its own right.

This is solitude as I experience it. Most of my time is spent alone. Not necessarily lonely, but alone.

I have found in this solitude a certain calm and connection to self that I hadn’t felt before. A certain inward path has appeared on which I learn how to better see who, what I am, what is around me, and what is meant by life. It has really shown light upon how we are part of the earth, even though we are, at times, poor stewards of the land we inhabit. Even here, where most of the land I inhabit has been mostly untouched, I find our imprint on it. A few times a week, I walk and observe the abundant life around me. Ferns, moss, trees, rocks, tiny bits of plastic, old plastic bags, various detritus of all kinds, rusted car parts, and an old boat deteriorating amongst the trees.

I fill my pockets with plastic bits and old nails. The markings of my kind. I wonder, is this how we mark our territory? Like a grizzly bear leaving claw marks on trees.

NightSong

It’s been about 6 months since moving out to the Island.
I guess I should describe where I live now.
The land I am on is just over 5 acres. It is forested with alder, and fir trees mostly.
Towards the back of the property is a wetland and pond that I believe are there year-round.

Beneath the trees lies a carpet of ferns and moss covering the forest floor. Out towards the pond, there is what is called “canary grass”, it’s a green wide-bladed grass that gets about 4 feet tall. Most of the land has never been cleared, there are downed trees, nurse logs, branches, and more sticks than you could ever pick up.
Half of the land is in a preservation trust, which means that I cannot build on it. At first, this caused me concern. Then I did some research and discovered that all the land I can see from my cabin has also been placed in the preservation trust. No one can build on it, ever. This means that I basically live in a preserve, a nature sanctuary and I will never see another house from my cabin.

Wildlife is everywhere.
I have never been interested much in birds….until now. Daily I see and or hear, robins, juncos, stellar jays, flickers, pileated woodpeckers, bald eagles, owls, ducks, and various other winged messengers. It’s become sort of a thing that I awake to the sound of birds as the sun comes up. I have noticed lately that even without thinking about it I can identify the bird calls and who they belong to. I have taken it upon myself to feed them (maybe a bad idea, they eat a LOT). I have various bird feeders I have built around the property that require filling and cleaning on a daily basis.
Spring has now arrived and I now notice a chorus of frogs each night as the sun sets. A multitude of Pacific Chorus Frogs, so many frogs. And also deer, lots of deer.

The cabin itself is 518 sq feet, it has a kitchen, a living area, a “bedroom” and a bathroom. Since moving here I have not had use of the indoor bathroom yet. It needed to be gutted and rebuilt. I have an outdoor propane shower and a composting toilet (Recently my indoor toilet was put in place). Showering outside when its 30 degrees and windy can be interesting. The primary source of heat is a wood stove. I do have a portable oil-filled radiator but I rarely use it. I sleep in the living room on a Japanese futon, complete with grass Tatami mats. I converted the bedroom into a workshop and storage space for the time being. Early on I decided to do all my cooking outside, I have a propane stove that I use for cooking on the covered deck. The reason for this is to reduce the food smells in such a small space. I also got rid of my indoor refrigerator and put a mini fridge out on the deck. I did this to reduce the sound of the fridge running since the kitchen and living room share the same space. Having an outdoor fridge comes with its own difficulties of course like when it freezes outside everything in the fridge freezes as well.

The land itself is in what is locally referred to as east-est Orcas. It’s pretty much the furthest you can get from the ferry landing. Once on the island, it’s another 45 minutes drive to get home. It’s past Doe bay, on the other side of Moran state park, if you drove further past the property about a mile you would drive into the ocean. I am 30 minutes from the nearest grocery store, which has done wonders for my desire for pie or ice cream and after-dinner snacking. I am way too lazy to drive 30 minutes each way to buy snacks.

The adjustment to this type of living has been interesting. There are always things to do. Stacking wood, splitting wood, moving wood, making kindling for the stove, feeding birds, raking up branches near the cabin, the near constant vacuuming of the cabin floor. After spending 2 years moving every month or so and living in other people’s spaces where I had nothing to do, no tasks or chores it is a welcome relief. Idle hands and all that…….

In closing. It’s not about making this place into something else, bending it to my will, or changing it. The land and forest has been here for millennia. It’s about listening to the stories it whispers of, all I have to do is listen, and then I change.

Well, well, well……..

Every day out here at the Edge of the World, I learn or figure out something new.

It’s been cold here for a few days, like single digits cold with a decent wind chill. I noticed yesterday morning that the water pressure seemed low. OMG, frozen pipes!!!. I didn’t think that was the issue, but it was there in the recesses of my mind. Hot water works, cold water works, no leaking pipes I can see. I can hear the well pump turn on every so often, so that’s good. The well still works.

The well is 150 feet from the cabin, but when the well pump kicks on 450 feet underground, I can hear it because it vibrates the pipes just slightly under the house in the crawlspace. It helps me to know it’s still working. This morning the temperature dipped again. My water pressure dropped a bit more.

Maybe it is the pipes freezing. Nah, it could be that.

The well pumps to a pressure tank under the cabin.

Did it freeze? Nah!

How does a pressure tank work? Well, it’s basically a big tank that has a diaphragm in it, one side is the water, and one side is pressurized air. What happens to air when it gets COLD? It shrinks! Just like how your car tire PSI drops in colder temperatures. OK, so now, how do I remedy the Issue? The wind chill has been fierce today, and I have a reasonable amount of ventilation ducts for the crawl space.

So I went out there and cut cardboard pieces to block the wind intrusion through the vents. Then I remembered there was an electrical socket near the pressure tank. When I moved in I noticed there was a cage light down there lying in the dirt. AHA! I need a lightbulb to put in the cage light to increase the temperature down there just enough. I don’t have spare lightbulbs, and LED ones won’t work. I remembered there is an overhead light in the shed, so I took that bulb and put it in the cage.

We will see if my experiment works.

Stay tuned