blood heat alone

[cimorene]

Here at Knypplinge in the lovely downtown of Pargas in the lovely Finnish archipelago, autumn is falling. The leaves are starting to turn. The apples are looking alarmingly likely to fall off of all the trees in the yard, which is bad because somebody has to pick them up before they rot (there are 3 producing trees and still no lawnmower all summer, so the yard is more of a meadow). And the air is cold. Specifically, for the last week it's been around 6-8° C (43-46 F) in the mornings, and on several days still below 10° (50 F) in the hottest part of the day.

Our radiators aren't turned on for two reasons.

1. They can't be turned on because our geothermal heat pump - the replacement one paid for by the insurance(s) after the other one got destroyed by the flooded basement - is here but can't be turned on because they're still waiting for a part. We have hot water because they hooked up a smallish electric temporary water heater for us, but it's not attached to the radiator system.



2. All of the radiators were removed downstairs on our side of the house, because all of the walls over there needed to have their latex paint and vinyl wallpaper stripped off and replaced with breathable wallcoverings to prevent our house from getting water damage. We papered and painted the dining and livingrooms, papered but did not paint in the entry hall (and said fuck it, we can paint behind the radiator after it's up. I'll use a pipecleaner if necessary), and ripped off & replaced the old paper specifically JUST in the bit of wall behind the radiator in the kitchen. So the kitchen wall looks pretty stupid (for now, but once it's warm in there we can do the rest of the wall too), but as of 2 days ago, all of the spots that are supposed to have radiators are ready to receive them again. The plumbers came to hook them back up, but they can't be turned on right away. Something about how radiators work - bleeding the air off and... some stuff.

So. It's been cold. MIL is still living at her summer cottage, with an outhouse, because our side isn't exactly habitable (although it is now electricity AND radiator ready! And the plumber said if we buy the shower and sinks and toilets this weekend they can start to install the upstairs bath next week), but she does have heating inside, UNLIKE US, because there ARE NO RADIATORS TURNED ON IN THIS HOUSE. There's just underfloor heating in the bathroom, which is where the cats are whenever they're not on our laps, eating, under the blankets in the bed, running around yelling, or using the litter box.

I'm a slightly-over-100-lb weakling with terrible Jewish circulation and no physical condition and long spindly limbs and a subtropical upbringing: a hothouse flower, as waxjism charmingly puts it. I usually end up huddling with multiple microwaved hot packs daily all winter even in a place with GOOD heating, like a sturdy crowded apartment building. I've been stuck on the sofa, hood up, in a scarf and merino half-finger gloves, periodically warming my hands under the cat, all week, because it's about 16° (60 F) inside right now. Yesterday I warmed my hands a bit knitting, but today it's too cold for me to knit.

Also we're out of sheets right now, because the BB has a slight incontinence problem in her old age and has been peeing in our bed from time to time. It seems to be unrelated to pain or to her kidney disease and to happen when she's warm and happy. We have a mattress protector and FORTUNATELY a pretty large collection of sheets, but what we don't have (still) is a washing machine (the hookup will be in the downstairs bath where they are just now done with subfloor and ready to pour cement soon), so we keep running out of flat sheets (some of them are still packed around stuff that is still in boxes though). Yesterday a new food that I mixed 50/50 with the old food upset both of the cats' stomachs and one of them vomited in the bed and the duvets as well as the duvet covers and flat sheet and the mattress protector all had to be stripped off, and we ran out of flat sheets and mattress protection and had to break out our Very Thin Summer Duvet and our Very Warm Down Duvet. Fortunately it was cold last night and the heat isn't on, so I was only SLIGHTLY too warm in this duvet, which is more the weight you would want when camping or visiting the UK where it's damp and there are frequently holes in the walls than the weight you could ever use in a standard, well-insulated, thoroughly double-glazed Finnish home (there's a week or two every 5 years or so where it gets down to about -20-25° C for a while, and then the radiators do indeed fail to keep pace even in an apartment building, and the down duvet is not too warm. It's been excessive for the last 5 years though).

Comments

[yvannairie]

how is your luck this bad

[cimorene]

That is a very good point

[yvannairie]

I really don't know what to say than I'm sorry this all keeps happening so much and here's a bunny: https://www.instagram.com/p/B0nuscuHMUc/?igshid=zjy54blukvtb

[cimorene]

How cute! It looks a bit like our bunnies! I wonder what they would make of the snow... that would be quite a photoshoot

[yvannairie]

I wonder if the kind of weather that produces soft snow like that would be too cold for them? ó_ò) You gotta have a flash freeze for powdery snow, after all.

[cimorene]

Yeah, I'm not sure! They have VERY long fur, which is excellent insulation... but they are also kinda adapted to a very warm indoor environment. If you want to switch bunnies from indoor to outdoor in colder times you gotta do it a bit gradually, with a few hours a day in each. When we first got ours, they had been in a bunny room in a barn which was sort of mildly warmer than outdoors but still cold, so they spent the night on the balcony for a bit.

[yvannairie]

I love videos of buns playing in snow and leaves but it always seemed ill-advised to me b/c I remember talking to someone with buns who did agility who said it was rare for buns to be as fearless and social as hers, and usually they require quite a bit of stability.

[cimorene]

Bunnies outside need to be supervised because of predators, but I would think they could get used to a familiar outdoor area and come to feel safe in it the same way they would to a new room or new house probably. Because they can startle and run/jump incredibly fast, they need to be fenced in and harnesses and leashes aren't fully safe - in a panic they can injure themselves. But provided you have a fenced rabbit run, like the kind people have for chickens, or a portable pen for them, it might be okay!

My buns haven't experienced very many different or new places in their lives, so I expect when I start putting them in the playpen next summer they may take longer to relax than some other bunnies might.