When I built the sauna a few months ago, I decided to place it right beside the exercise studio, on the opposite side of the dooryard from the house. By the way, for those of you not from New England, a dooryard is the area in front of your house that you drive into and park. You don’t really have those areas in suburbia, where people often just drive up in front of a garage, or if it’s a fancier house, perhaps into a circular driveway. In town, they just park in the street. But here, where people do visit each other, you need a place for your friends to put their vehicle when they arrive, and that’s the purpose of a dooryard. But I digress…
Anyway, I put the sauna and exercise studio across the dooryard, which makes for a bit of a quick dash over to them early in the morning (for the exercise studio, not as often as I should) or at night, to the sauna, which happens four or five nights each week. With the snow we’ve been having for the past few weeks (it’s late February 2023 as I write this), I can only clear things down so far with either the snowblower or snow blade, both mounted on the tractor. After a few days of sun and melting, the dooryard resembles a skating rink.
I fell twice last year on the ice. Well, twice that I can remember anyway, because each of those slips was worse than anything I’d experienced anytime in the past decade or more. My right hip, which took the brunt of one of those falls, hasn’t been quite the same since, although a return to stretching, yoga, and use of Kate’s Pilates reformer seems to be helping of late. I don’t want a repeat performance this year, so I’ve been waling around with these “creepers” all winter on most of the footwear I wear around the property. For my boots, I have actual crampons that could presumably take me on a trek to Mt. Everest, but they’re a bit aggressive for just walking around near the house.
I had never used these things before moving to Maine. They’re basically just stretchy plastic or rubber contraptions with steel cleats, that you pull on over your shoes. There are various brands and styles available. I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with the Stabile brand, which I can get on easily enough, but they tend to come off at inconvenient times as well. Tradeoffs… They make a more aggressive type that are permanently on my firefighter turnout gear all winter, but they’re a bit much for normal footwear.
Oh, the Crocs… I knew I was going somewhere with this… When I go to the sauna at night I do so with just a little towel-like thing wrapped around my lower half, because it’s too much trouble to undress when I get into the sauna. The same goes for footwear – I want to just kick it off and hop into the heat. And thus the “Ice Crocs”. Maybe the people at the Crocs company will see this one day and make a fancier version. Have at it, Crocs people. You’re welcome to the idea. Just send me a free pair every two or three years, and we’re even. Size 11, please, and I think I’d like a glow-in-the-dark, bright orange or yellow pair, so I can find them on a snowy night if I lose one in my mad dash over to the heat.
