Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Night 5 & 6

Well, sorry I have not updated the posts recently. Night 5 and 6 were between -10 and -16. Sleep was good but as always woke up sore.

Then a crazy thing happened. L, explained there were bennefits of sleeping inside as well and I kind of got side tracked and started sleeping inside again.

I weighed the pros and cons of each sleeping arrangments and "inside" won, for the time being......

Other than that, not much happening around here. We are all getting sick of winter, it is either below zero (which stinks and no one wants to go outside), or when it gets above zero it starts snowing.

I tried to cut some trees down, figured I would lay down about a 1/2 acre, but after about 6-8 trees I was exhausted. I was up to my waist in snow and couldn't move. When a tree would not fall the direction I wanted it to, I realized I couldn't move out of the way very fast. So maturity is sneaking up on me and I decided to wait till either the snow melts or blows away.

Speaking of maturity, have you seen all the gray hairs on top of my head recently, Well you missed your opportunity, cause I'm gonna shave em off again. Anyways it's not old age, just high mileage.....

Someone recently asked me why I shave my head, they said I looked mean and grumpy.......

I'm not sure they knew me very well. Maybe I like the mean and grumpy look.

3 more months of winter..............

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Sleep Study Continued

NIGHT #3 - -8 below zero, sleeping with a pillow in the bag with me, the pillow seems to take up more space and keeps the bag warmer with less cold spots. slept like a baby, only 6 hours (couldn't hold it any longer), not sure if I mentioned this before but I am using a -25 sleeping bag, on a cot, in the open wood shed (roof, no walls except one side against the stack of wood as a wind break). One big difference is that when I wake up in the morning, although I am stiff and usually a little sore, I feel I have much more energy.

Lesson learned, if you need to lighten the load (#1) don't waste your energy trying to hold it till morning it's much better to just get out of bed and hurry back which brings me to a question, why do you haft to go pee more when your outside sleeping in the cold? In researching why I learned that when your in cold weather a change occurs. Typically most of us spend most of our time in climate controlled homes/buildings/cars and as such our bodies are usually producing sweat at varying levels, in order to control the body temperature. When you leave that climate controlled environment for an environment that is colder where your main heat source is your body, then you almost completely stop sweating, since you are now focused on heat production and preservation. Additionally being exposed to the cold causes your blood vessels to constrict and thus less blood flow to the skin surface. Cause and effect, the effect of not sweating and less blood flow is an increasing the blood pressure and more fluid in the body (usually expelled through sweat and evaporation). Thus you need to dispose of the fluid in the form of urine.

NIGHT #4 -14.9 below zero when I woke up. Very deep sleep. Very cold night, felt warm in the sleeping bag. I am thoroughly impressed with the sleeping bag. I am not sure how they determine the rating on sleeping bags but even without a tent this sleeping bag kept me very warm and not at all uncomfortable in terms of temperature.