Ahhhh!!!! THAW!!!!

After temperatures that dipped down to -35 before you factored in wind chill, todays daytime temperature of zero degrees celsius is postively balmy! The other day I foolishly tried to open the door on my van with a bare hand and it was so cold my fingers felt burned by it.

In the course of my lifetime, I have lived with oil heat, steam registers, electric baseboards and a wood furnace. When it gets this cold, nothing beats a wood furnace. The wood is not only cheaper, it also dries the air out which makes it feel warmer in the house. When we used to live in the Vancouver area, I could never feel warm in the winter when it was raining outside with the gas heat on because of the high humidity. It was bone-chilling,raw, dreary cold.

I also like not having to depend on the gas company for supply. Lots of people have found themselves stranded without heat or a way of cooking when their gas supply was cut off for whatever reason. Then there is the cost factor. If you use natural gas or electric to heat your home, you are captive to the rates charged by the supplier. This year we were able to get a lot of wood for nothing more than the price of the gas to haul it. The only thing it needed was sawing into the right lengths. We didn't even have to split it as it was the scrap unusable part cut off logs when they are sawed into boards. It was pre-split, so to speak.

I remember the clanking of the steam registers in the old converted farm house I was raised in, in Massachusetts. I am sure that I would consider them an unsightly though necessary evil if there were in my house now. My sister has them in her house and while they keep it warm, they are also great for catching dust. However, I loved being able to sit on them when especially cold, and they were also a great place for drying out wet mittens in the winter.