The Arctic freeze is receding, but leaving behind it an impending dump of snow. News of this came too late yesterday to go out for propane so I knew I needed to squeeze in a town run first thing this morning.

As it turns out, I had 25lbs of propane left between all my tanks but I was unable to run any one of them for any length of time last night. It looks like in temperatures below -30C I can only use up half of each of my 20lb tanks and about two thirds of my 30lb. I still get enough gas from them to light the stove, but not to feed the furnace. Anyway, it’s definitely warmer today and going into a warming trend, so I’m not worried about this in the least.

I left home at about 9:00 this morning into a very dark and ominous sky. The road out of the hamlet to the highway was less icy than it was on Friday so I made it to town quickly. The snow started to come down as I pulled into the Co-Op.

I’m posted a few times about how I’ve been caught a number of times with very little gas in the truck tank since I forget to check the gauge regularly. Well, I impressed myself this morning when I had the foresight to see how I was doing for gas and saw that I was nearly in the red, a huge no-no for winter conditions in rural country. So I got gas while my propane tanks were being filled, then I went inside for a coffee.

Visibility coming home was fine on the road although I couldn’t see far beyond the road, the sky was so low and heavy. The snow was just blowing though, so the roads were clear and I got home without any issues. The whole trip took about an hour and fifteen minutes, which is really good and probably a record for needing to get three propane tanks filled. This past summer, I learned that I can drive to town, get one tank filled, and drive straight back home in exactly one hour.

Well, I’d better get to work. Being three hours behind is not a good way to start the week!