Two Hands and a Knife

I drove to the cabin this past Monday afternoon with two primary goals:  1) To pick up my snow tires, which were stored in the woodshed....

...sure wish they'd put only one tire, instead of two, per bag, but thanks to my sister, who spends her vacations cleaning and organizing, at least these were right inside the door and not buried the way they usually are... 


 ...and 2) to stuff strips of plastic bags into the cracks between the windows and the frames to prevent drafts and moisture intrusion now that the winds are picking up at the higher elevations and some light snows have been falling in Eldora.

Now that I'm not living at the cabin full time I wanted to be sure the mattress on the bunk didn't get damp and mold like the last one.

After living in the cabin for two winters and pondering the best way to "insulate" the windows, which swing into the cabin, without covering them with semi-translucent plastic and lath either on the inside (ugly) or outside (impossible because of the shutters), I decided I'd try this solution. 

All that seemed to be required were the bags, of course, my two hands and a knife...

This reminded me of a book I loved as a pre-teen called Two Hands and a Knife.  My memory is a bit foggy about how we came to have this pulp paperback in the house.  It seems we had been given a box of paperbacks, all with a bit of a masculine bent, by someone, perhaps an uncle.  And since, even then, I read everything I could get my hands on, these were a treasure trove of escapism.  (I also loved Argosy magazine and had a collection of gorgeous nature pages published in each issue by Weyerhaeuser!)

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the pulp fiction paperbacks got tossed at some point.  They would have been worth keeping if for no other reason than what I recall as being the typically lurid cover art of such pulp fiction of the period. 

I decided I'd see if the book was still available, so went to Amazon and discovered a mystery.  The original Two Hands and a Knife was a story of a young man (I recall he was 16) who, after being left alone, with only two hands and a knife, in Canada's Northwest Territories following a small plane crash that killed his father, must use all of his wilderness skills to return to civilization.  I still remember his frightening encounter with a wolverine! 

According to Amazon, it was written by Warren Hastings Miller and was published by Scholastic Magazine in 1956 as a mass market paperback.  "Currently unavailable," states Amazon.  "We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."  However, there is a listing for a book by the same title, written by a Terry E. Gibson and published in 2003, which according to reviews, has basically the same plot.  Wonder if Mr. Miller failed to get a copyright?  

I thought these comments by two readers, who, like me, read the original, were interesting:

"I read this story fifty years ago when I was a teenager," says David D. Abbott. "I would strongly recommend this book to all young people as a guide for self reliance and living skills. The mental pictures I formed as I read the story are still clear and sharp in my mind. [Emphasis mine].  My life has been enhanced by this book."

"I too read a book by this title 50 years ago," says GreyDX, "but this does not seem to be the same book. Perhaps the author or publisher could post some information explaining the relationship, if any, to the earlier book by Warren Hastings Miller, with the same tile (sic) and the same plot. I would be very interested."

So, back to my wilderness experience using two hands and a knife...and some plastic bags.  I spent a couple of hours stuffing plastic bags and strips of bags into every window crack and crevice into which the knife could be inserted.  Some of the cracks were so wide I could easily stuff in an entire bag.  Other places, the cracks were smaller and I had to cut thin strips.  I was very deliberate and tidy.  I didn't want the plastic bag insulation to be obvious.  

Looking good...

Looking better...

I did all four windows and, even though it got down into the 20s,...

and the winds came up in the night, there were no drafts coming in around the windows.  

Now one wouldn't think pushing with your hand would be hard on a torn shoulder rotator cuff (yes, I finally had an MRI and the fall I had in May tore my right rotator cuff...another story), but I kept waking up in the night going, "Why didn't I remember my ibuprofen!"  My arm was killing me.  But, the job was done...or was it?

The next day, there was a red (OK, pink, and more than a little out of focus...it was early and I hadn't had my coffee) sky in the morning...

I've never been sure the old saw "Sailor take warning" only applied to sailors and bad weather or could bode ill for landlubbers, but at some point the next day I realized I hadn't removed the window screens my brother-in-law had made for the west and south windows and the hooks and eyes are on the inside!  In order to remove the screens so they could be stored out of Eldora's  horrendous winter weather I had to open the windows and, of course, all of the plastic bags and strips of plastic bags fell out. !#&*!

Before I started on Phase II, I went into Nederland and added to my "tools"...

Two Hands, a Knife and Some Ibuprofen.  Hmm.  Not quite the same. And neither was the job I did on the windows I have to admit.  I thought I was doing an adequate, if not an obsessive-compulsive, job, but I ended up with bags and strips left over!  What did I miss?

The other "monkey do, monkey (finally) see (what she should have done)" thing that happened with this project was that I had decided to close the shutter before I left just on the west window in case there were 100 mph winds coming over the Divide, like there were last Thanksgiving, that might blow something heavy enough into that window to break it.  I even told my neighbors the day before that was what I was going to do.  I'd forgotten that shutter also hooks into hooks on the inside of the window!  Whose idea was that?  I suppose having the hooks inside means anyone wanting to gain unauthorized access would have to remove the hinges?  No need for another padlock?
 
No, I didn't attempt Phase III.  I'm taking a chance and perhaps I'll think of some way to hook that shutter from the outside.  That would be a good idea anyway if a person is going to be visiting occasionally during the winter.  In fact, I think the east window shutter has an outside hasp.  I'll see what I can rig up...Two Hands and a Drill!...the next time I'm there....and I can't wait.  Boy, am I happy up there.  More on the next post!  Teddee