She’s Frozen!

So continues our adventures with the mighty Goddess Kali, aka “The Beast…” We were expecting some troubles having a diesel vehicle in the cold, cold Northeast Vermont winter, but having such a mild winter so far she’s been taking the cold very well. After our Christmas visit to Philadelphia we returned to VT, and after a very warm January (temps in the 40’s) February brought the sub zero temps back. After a couple nights of -15 degrees we attempted to start her up on a cold morning to go visit our friend David as he did some filming at a local elementary school. She wanted to start; in fact, she started to turn over and start up, but immediately sputtered out. It was way too cold, and I should have had her plugged in for at least a couple of hours more to some generator power. But I (Jon) continued to try and try, I was determined, in fact I tried for 3 days. I plugged her in, used Diesel 911, I put steaming water underneath the engine, and even hot coals to try and warm her up. I cranked and cranked, the battery was dying so we tried jumping her back to life… Nothing worked and finally I turned the key and… nothing. I killed the starter. I should have known better.

This all happened days before we had to leave to go housesit in Montpelier. Luckily our good friend Iza, hooked us up with a ride. We have been very fortunate to have met some great people during our time here in VT. While in Montpelier, we were able to borrow a car from the family that Amy babysits for to go look for a more reliable winter vehicle. After finding a car, our good friend David took us to pick it up. Again, feeling a bit homesick for all the support that comes from the place you’ve lived for so long, how nice to know that even in VT we have some good friends to lend a hand when needed.

So we now have a new member of our family. Appropriately enough for Vermont, she’s a Subaru and we named her Bess or Suggs. Subaru is the official Vermont vehicle, they even say there are more Subaru’s than people in VT, oh wait, or is it cows… oh well… Anyway, being newly inducted Vermont residents it seemed it was necessary to have an all wheel drive gasoline vehicle.

As for Kali, she’s being taken care of as I type this post. She’ll have a new starter, a Vermont inspection and be back on the road and back on the grease in hopefully no time.