Recently we had some bad weather move through. Lots of sleet. Inches of sleet. Yep, sleet and freezing rain are typical for my area of the country. We weren’t hit as hard as other places in the South, but we got a couple of inches of sleet. Thankfully no freezing rain. Freezing rain is the bane of a Southern winter. It’s sad that Southern kids have to sled on sleet, but hey, it works and it does get us “snow” days. We had Monday and Tuesday off school due to the amount of ice on the roads.
This Saturday we were hit with a true snow event. We haven’t had a true snow event here since 2004. In case you are wondering, a true snow event is when we get an actual accumulation of snow and skip the winter mix of sleet/rain/snow all together. I don’t know what the official total was, but I had about six inches in my yard. I can hear all you Yankees laughing thinking six inches isn’t much. In the big picture you are correct, it isn’t. I’ve lived where we had bigger snowfalls, but here in the south six inches or more is a great snowfall. We will take it! And yes, it got us another two snow days!
As I sat in my sunroom watching the snow accumulate in my backyard, I started thinking how could I make use us this awesome weather and day off when I was struck with an idea. Since I like to write fantasy and dystopian, I should use this weather to test my mettle.
OK, not really, but I did get out the little flat pack rocket stove I bought a year or so ago and never tried. How would one of my characters fare in the cold and snow when trying to make a hot meal? The next morning, when it was 26 degrees outside (with a wind chill of 15) I ventured into my backyard. I hunted around the branches that had fallen out of the trees and were not sticking out of the snow in a search for dry sticks. I collected the dry sticks I found, cleared a spot in the snow and started my rocket stove. I’ll be honest, I used a little fire starter, good old cotton balls with petroleum jelly in them. With the amount of wind, I’m not sure I could have gotten the fire started any other way. I guess whatever character I’m writing will have to be a prepared character and have fire starters. Once I got the sticks burning, I put my pot of water on the stove, covered it and waited. The wind was blowing a hooey so I built a makeshift windscreen to keep the flames moving upward toward the pot and not sideways where they would only heat the stove walls.
In thirteen minutes my water was starting to boil. Good thing too, I was running out of dry sticks. I suppose if my character was in a forest he or she would have more options. I, however, was limited to the resources in my small backyard. I poured the boiling water over the hot chocolate powder in my cup and mixed it up. On that beautiful sunny day, with the wind whipping at my back, I enjoyed my hot chocolate thinking of how I’d better step up my survival game if I’m going to make it as a dystopian book character in a world where civilization has collapsed. My fire making skills are lacking. What would happen if I had to grow food for survival? Build shelter? First aid?
How many lives does my character get??
Runes & Rust 