As I had feared/suspected the car was encased in ice when I tried to get in it today. I had started it from inside the house with the remote starter thingy on my keychain to let it warm up, but there was far too much ice on the car and the temperature outside was far too cold for a simple warm-up to thaw the car. After finally getting the driver's door open and inserting the key in the ignition to keep it going, and putting the defrost, and rear defrost, on with the fan and heat on high, it was like sitting entombed in an ice cave. Toad finally got the front door open and sat down. Earlier he had brushed some snow off the front windshield and back window but had not realized the thickness of the ice below it. We had left the wipers up so that they would not freeze to the windshield but the poor wipers were encased in thick ice.
After twenty minutes or so the windshield had partially thawed along the bottom and we put the wipers down, only to find that the blades had both warped into arcs and were ice-encrusted. I have never seen this happen before!
| Wipers up |
| Wiper down, bowed, not touching glass |
After taking some photos of the trees around us and the iced car I used the ice scraper to hit the wiper arms and blades to break off some of the ice but couldn't get much off. I did scrape off about a third of the ice remaining on the windshield and about half of what was on the back window. We waited another fifteen minutes or so with the heat and defrost on full blast before trying the deformed wipers. Ideally they would have straightened out and thawed as they stayed in contact with the glass, but in reality they remained warped so badly that they could not function as wipers. They were just two odd appendages waving in the air above the windshield.
With the windshield clear enough to see through I drove us the half mile to the community mailboxes and backed in carefully. Another vehicle pulled up, waiting for me to settle before turning in. I got out and the other driver got out. We trudged over to the ice-encased community mailbox. It was obvious that the doors were frozen solid. The other driver, a woman with short henna'd hair, went to her SUV and came back with a ice scraper/brush and began to beat on the ice over her mailbox door. She stopped and asked which was my mailbox and I showed her. She began beating on my mailbox door and continued for several minutes before giving up. She said we'll just have to catch the mail delivery woman when she opens the big door (to deliver the mail to the cubicles within). Since there is no set time for her to come this is rather unrealistic.
I told Toad that I would get our rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol from the house when we returned and use it to de-ice the wiper blades. If there was enough left I would go back to the mailbox and try to de-ice our box in order to collect our mail. We don't have very much on hand, unfortunately. I would like to de-ice the mailbox of the woman who tried to open mine but it would be futile because as soon as the light snow touches it it will freeze again. That happened over and over to our rear window whenever the rear defrost turned off.
The windshield was dry so we set off for the village post office to mail two pouches of books and DVDs back to the NB Public Library. Two of the six items going back are due on the 17th but I sent the other four since I have finished with them as well. Three items remain at home: 2 DVDs and the Michael Pollan book I am currently reading. The roads are partially clear but there is still a lot of ice on them and I drove carefully. Toad took the pouches into the post office for me so that I wouldn't have to turn off the car again. He told the post mistress that we could not get into our mailbox but she just said that it was like that everywhere and that she had had a lot of complaints.
That task accomplished, I suggested that we drive another half mile or so to the depanneur (convenience store) to see if they sold de-icer and to buy us each a donair sub. Toad was agreeable to that; I think he had forgotten about their subs. He sat in the car with it running while I went inside. They had sold out of de-icer. I ordered two 12-inch donair subs with everything and, while waiting, talked with the owner of the depanneur about my wiper blades and the mailbox. I don't think he understood what I was saying because although his English is good it is not his first language, but he got the gist of it. He thought I was talking about my wiper fluid not coming out and about the keyhole of mailbox. He said that he had opened the last de-icer to be able to open one of the doors of the depanneur today and that his wiper fluid would not come out until he put some de-icer onto the holes it comes out from. Anyway, before I left he said that someone in the store had opened a de-icer and a little bit was left in it and that I could have it. I thanked him very much.
The de-icer is a mixture of ethanol and isopropyl alcohols, which I already knew. There is only maybe half a teaspoon in the small bottle he gave me--just enough to de-ice a lock or two--so I am saving it in my purse for now.
We drove home and ate our subs, grateful to be in the house and halfway warm. The house is not very warm despite the woodstove because it is so bitterly cold outside. My hands are very cold as I type this at 5:29pm Atlantic time. Too cold to go back outside with alcohol to try to de-ice the wipers or try to de-ice the mailbox.
There is no way that I can drive to my pain clinic appointment tomorrow with the roads this bad and no functioning wipers and the wiper fluid unable to spray due to solid ice all over the base of the windshield and below in spite of our running the car for well over an hour today. I'll have to call in the morning and cancel/postpone. Darn it. We have to get pet food very soon; I had counted on picking some up tomorrow while in the city. Until I get the wiper situation sorted out I can't drive very far at all.
Oh, for a garage to park in! And warmer weather!
Today I:
- slept in and had several disturbing nightmares; Toad had to call out to me at least once to stop one of them; all involved 2 tiny cute baby squirrels packed in a tube to be food for either deadly venomous spiders or slender snakes that when hungry would emerge from an opaque area at the top of the tube to feed
- cooked for the chickens and fed the cats
- readied the pouches of books and DVDs to mail back to the public library
- froze outside trying to scrape the windshield and wipers and back window of the car
- tried to fetch our mail
- successfully mailed the pouches to the public library
- bought us donair subs to eat, a nice treat
- practiced French via seven strengthen skills exercises
- had an argument with my brother on Skype over family matters
Photos/Captures of the Day:
| Our side yard |
| Poor birch trees |
| View from the road of front side yard & house;the poor trees |
