Turning Colder

It is turning colder out. I wore numerous layers of clothes for last evenings “learn-to-row” session. I know the intensity of cold here in Alabama can’t begin to compare to what I lived with in western New York, but none the less, I hate the cold. Whenever I hear the aria "Che Gelida Manina" (Your tiny hand is frozen) from Puccini’s La Boheme I get goose bumps. Not just from the soaring music, but because I know what it feels like to be that cold…..

Yesterday afternoon I sorted though my old wool sweaters so I could dress up a bit in case I decided to venture out to Art Night after the row. I discovered one of my favourite Lands End Shetland wool sweaters had acquired a couple tiny holes. Damn…. It is only about 15 years old… it is barely broken in. I’m thinking there is some repair thread packed away in mom’s old sewing basket. Back in the day Lands End was a fantastic mail order company to deal with. Any new clothes I used to buy were from them. That was years, opps… I can almost say decades ago. I have some socks to darn, so it looks to be a sewing day today!

I can tell it is cold out as Stumpy has decided to sack out on the bed rather than go outside. The thermostat in the hall showed my house temperature at 55° this morning. I held my breath and switched the control over to heat. The fan started and then I heard the “woosh” as the gas ignited in the heat chamber. I splurged and let the temperature climb to 65°.

I can’t believe that furnace is 16 years old: it was the first thing I had installed when I bought this house. For many years I carried a service contract with the firm who did the installation for seasonal check-ups to the heating and air conditioning units. As often happens, things turned for the worse and that company lost all their good service people. It has been a quite a spell since that unit has been checked by a “professional”. I keep the filters changed and have learned how to decipher the “flashing codes” on the motherboard when things screw up. So far I’ve managed to keep the thing running….

There is supposed to be a frost warning out for tonight. Time to move plants inside: Hopefully the David ferns will survive another winter. The mother fern was purchased back in 1982 from Plant City which was located on Main Street in Buffalo, NY. That fern has been divided and brought back from the dead more times than I can count!