Zoe's Water Bowl Froze Solid Last Night -- in the Cabin

My cabin thermometer is mounted about chest-high, 4 1/2' above the cabin sole, and since heat rises, it'll always be a bit warmer than the cabin sole. It read about 60 when I got up this morning, which is pretty good considering it had dropped down to 7 or 8 last night, and was only 9 at the time, but dropped to under 50 after I made my bunk and got dressed.

However, it wasn't until much later, after I'd had my coffee, and taken Zoe for a walk, that I discovered her frozen water dish on the cabin sole. She ate some snow on the walk, so she's okay, but I'm using one of my lights to warm up her dish and thaw it out, so she can drink if she wants.

Part of the problem at night is that when I pull out my bunk, I move the electric heater from the sole to the engine cover so it can't start a fire. That means the sole is more or less blocked off from the rest of the cabin, and doesn't get much heat. Typically, that's a good thing, since there's less to heat during the coldest part of the night, but it must have gotten pretty cold down there last night, because her dish was frozen solid with almost an inch of ice and still hasn't completely thawed -- after almost an hour under a lamp on the engine cover.

Zoe's sleeping, so I don't think she cares much, but I'm going to see if I can raise both her food dish and water bowl off the sole at least a few inches. I'll also make sure I pick them up at night from now on. She's been crawling into the sleeping bag with me for a little while each morning, but doesn't stay for too long -- she's got a really thick coat now, and gets too warm after about an hour.

Essentially, we're both just surviving right now and waiting till spring.