If you have heavily iced all the roots and the lowest foot or two of trunk it will also be cooling further up the tree by quite a bit due to the heat transfer effects. If you want to measure heat transfer get one of those IR heat gauge guns, it is an eye-opening experience to see how heat is graded on surfaces. Fire up your toaster and watch the surfaces around it warm up. etc. Since the interior of the tree is partly liquid (sap) there will be a relatively high rate of heat transfer down the trunk compared to the heat transfer with the air on the outside. So my guess is on a cloudy day or at night the upper limbs will be feeling a lot of that cool. On a sunny day the sun will dominate the heat transfer through the trunk. Scientists have done lots of studies of this but they may not have put a strong enough heat sink at the base of the tree since their focus was cooling the roots not cooling the tree via heat transfer. Scott

Please don't give up. A lot of things can affect your wife's apparent disinterest in sex. Have you talked with her about it? Just talking can really open up a lot of things and help you discover what the issues are. If you wife knows that you are talking with her about it not to pressure her but because you care about your relationship with her and want to be close to her, it will help. Don't give up on such a long-term marriage; please consider at least seeing a marriage counselor. Good luck.

Sorry everyone, I have been on hiatus for a few weeks here, I got busy and very sick for a while, but feeling better now. Anyway to answer some more questions, I do not have any daughters, both are boys, and a cabin would be nice, but not for the reasons we are talking about. Things have been going pretty good for a while here,my wife and I had a couple of talks and she seems much more receptive and willing, she even admitted that maybe there is a problem. However, this week there was a set back, nothing big, but frustrating none the less. My wife had a bad day with the kids on Wednessday and blew up at me for some pretty minor things. It all started because we were talking about going to my friends Holloween party in a few weeks, we were told there were no bedrooms left to spend the night. One of my firends was pretty upset by this and I stated that I don't think he ever got a room to sleep in anyway. This maded her irate, and I said well i certainly could be wrong, that didn't matter. She yelled at me for 45 minutes and then acted like nothing was wrong, very typical for her. I asked her why she was so mad, and she said I was wrong, I told her that I already admitted that I am wrong and what else did she want. She then started berating me for anything she could think of, she was mad because I was supposed to ask my mother to see of she could babysit for the first weekend in November for the holloween part discussed earlier.. This is my mother's birthday and she always goes up north, my wife knows this, but I went ahead and asked if that was what she was planning to do. My mother told me that she probably would be going up north, in her language that means don't even ask, I have plans. So, I stopped there and left it alone, according to my wife I should have asked anyways and that I tip toed around the situation. To me there was no situation, my mom said she would probably be going up north as she always does. The thing is that my wife does not want to go to this Halloween party anyways, and has expressed this numerous times. I told her that she is not required to go and I am fine going by myself. Then she started yelling abut how I don't tell her all the details she wants to know, I am meeing up with some friends this weekend that I have not seen in 6 months and for fun we are going to a haunted house. My wife want to know why I didn't tell her the time and how much it cost ahead of time, I told her, I didn't know all the details right away and I asked her, do you tell me everything including how much you spend. She looked at me and said no and nothing else. I asked why are you so upset, she said she had a bad day and is just venting, I told her that she can vent anytime she wants, but then tell me about your day, don't attack me on a personal level. That's just not appropriate. Then she jumped back to the original argument about who sleeps in the bedroom at our friends house and says I'm always defending people when she has something to say. I told her I was not defending anyone, I merely thought that our friend never slept in a room. After discussing it with you I admitted that I am wrong. I could go on and on, am I missing something here that my wife is trying to tell me. Because I feel like I'm banking head against a wall. One minute she admits there could be a problem, the next minute she is yelling at me about situations that involve either my family or my friends. If this were her family or friends, there is never any arguing. I'm sorry, I'm just venting , feel free to comment, if not thanks for listening. Regards,

"the first 30 years....... I'm talking once to twice a day everyday..." OMG how did you have time to do anything else like laundry or mow the lawn? Maybe you she just "used up" the libido she was born with and there's none left? Sorry to joke around about it...I'm a guy about your age with a healthy sex drive, but 30 years of everyday? Can't imagine that...but if it worked for you guys, more power to you. Not sure what is going on now, but I do agree that 50 is too young to be doomed to a sexless life. I also agree that you should not lay guilt on her for this, as it's most likely completely out of her control. Not sure what your options are...I certainly would not divorce what is apparently the love of your life (if you married at 16 and were happy and faithful for all those years, she is probably the right one for you), but like I said, I think you are way too young for a sexless life. I'd probably get attacked by the ladies if I went thru the various options in detail here....but there are options, and they range anywhere from simply relying on porn, to having someone outside the marriage for NSA fun....its up to you two which if any of those options would allow both of you to be happy in the marriage and not doom you to a sexless life. Good luck, I can only imagine how much this must suck....