Cold!
For now, the arctic air is winning the battle of the air masses.
We are at the nadir of the year. Even at nine in the morning, only a paleness on the southeastern horizon betrays the imminence of dawn.
I actually began stirring about eight to feed the wood stove. Our house has forced air heating and is built around a heated slab in the shop but we keep the wood stove burning fairly steadily for most of the year. since the great spruce bark beetle infestation, we have abundant dead wood on our property--free heat. And there is just something cozy about the radiant heat of a wood-burning stove.
Wood smoke is the aroma of comfort in our neighborhood.
I try to keep about three or four loads of wood in the metal bin beside the stove--warming and drying and ready for use so that on cold mornings like this I don't have to shuffle out across the deck in my house shoes and pajamas to the wood shed.
It was a cool night even in the house. Several cats are clustered down in the dining room in the aura of the stove--Slippers on the hearth, Frannie on the sofa, and Skinny slipping quickly back up the stairs when she hears me stirring. (Skinny pretends to be afraid of people...)
I feed a couple of pieces of wood to the stove then go upstairs to put soffee on before crawling back into bed. The television has been on all night, volume turned low, so I lie in bed and listen to the news, dozing until almost nine.
We are at our shortest days of the year now. Beginning tomorrow our hours of daylight are at their minimum. For several days, we will neither lose nor gain daylight. Then just after Christmas, our daylight will begin to slowly accumulate, a minute a day at first, then quickening with the new year.
It is as if the earth pauses for a long beat before falling back toward the sun...and summer.
*~*~*~*~*~*
We are at the nadir of the year. Even at nine in the morning, only a paleness on the southeastern horizon betrays the imminence of dawn.
I actually began stirring about eight to feed the wood stove. Our house has forced air heating and is built around a heated slab in the shop but we keep the wood stove burning fairly steadily for most of the year. since the great spruce bark beetle infestation, we have abundant dead wood on our property--free heat. And there is just something cozy about the radiant heat of a wood-burning stove.
Wood smoke is the aroma of comfort in our neighborhood.
I try to keep about three or four loads of wood in the metal bin beside the stove--warming and drying and ready for use so that on cold mornings like this I don't have to shuffle out across the deck in my house shoes and pajamas to the wood shed.
It was a cool night even in the house. Several cats are clustered down in the dining room in the aura of the stove--Slippers on the hearth, Frannie on the sofa, and Skinny slipping quickly back up the stairs when she hears me stirring. (Skinny pretends to be afraid of people...)
I feed a couple of pieces of wood to the stove then go upstairs to put soffee on before crawling back into bed. The television has been on all night, volume turned low, so I lie in bed and listen to the news, dozing until almost nine.
We are at our shortest days of the year now. Beginning tomorrow our hours of daylight are at their minimum. For several days, we will neither lose nor gain daylight. Then just after Christmas, our daylight will begin to slowly accumulate, a minute a day at first, then quickening with the new year.
It is as if the earth pauses for a long beat before falling back toward the sun...and summer.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Comments