It's cold

Yes, it's cold. Brilliant insight, right? In other news, water exists in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms on our planet.

But really - yesterday in our neck of the woods, the temperature dropped 15 degrees in 2 hours. A lot of people (us included) had some rutted slush in their driveways. Now we have "concrete" ruts that aren't going anywhere for a while.

And we had a mishap yesterday that left us chillier than we usually like when the temperature is 14 degrees outside. We supplement our heat with a wood stove, which usually works so well that the furnace doesn't kick on at all, and the only reason we even turn it on is to use the forced air blowers to move the heat around. Around the edge of the wood stove door is a gasket that helps control the combustion rate, sealing the door against the stove. It's something that should probably be replaced every year, but it looked pretty good this fall when we did our beginning-of-the-burn-season checkup, so we left it alone. Mistake.

Yesterday the high heat cement that holds the gasket in place, simply gave up. The whole gasket started flapping around - just as the temperature was dropping. Jake went to the hardware store and bought some high heat glue and fixed it, but we had to leave it alone overnight to allow it to cure. That was a bummer - listening to the wind actually shriek around the roof, and knowing that yes, we could turn up the heat, but then we'd have to deal with a huge bill. So we kept the heat low, dressed warmly, and used warm blankets. All normal, thrifty things to do.

All the same, I'm really glad to have the wood stove up and running again today. I plan to have the house up to 72 degrees by 2 PM, and that's going to feel like utter heaven. My toes just don't stay warm like they used to in my teens, back when I wore sandals year round.