Breakthrough

Tuesday, 4:40 pm

By Kate

Jan

15

2008

I slogged through the snow drifts to read the natural gas meter this afternoon. All I can say is...it was worth getting a load of snow down the back of my shirt!

Since Saturday night, we have used slightly less than 1 CCF of gas. That’s three days of use. Which means, supposedly, if I multiply .85 CCF by 2.33, I should get a reasonable estimate of what I’ll use for the entire week.

That would be....drum roll....1.98 CCF!!!

Could it be? Is it possible? I finally found the gas eating culprit? The furnace pilot light? And all this time I’ve been blaming the hot water heater.

I’m so excited, I can hardly wait until Thursday to get the final week’s tally.

Post storm bliss

Tuesday, 3:49 pm

By Kate

Jan

15

2008

Yesterday was a quiet day on the ranch. Being snowed in has its advantages. The lad and I spent a lot of talking and generally goofing around. We shoveled a lot, too. It’s much more enjoyable shoveling snow with someone than alone. Although he was perfectly willing to go out and do all the shoveling, he clearly didn’t object to having a bit of help. And I was in an utter state of bliss having someone to help with the heavy lifting. Then there were the inevitable snowball fights. We had a lot of fun.

Just before we went out to shovel, a couple of college age lads knocked on the door to see if I needed to have the driveway shoveled out. They were going around, house to house, to inquire. I might actually have been tempted if the lad hadn’t been here. But I told them I had my own 20 year old here to do the shoveling for me. They laughed and pushed off to the next house. I hope they had some success. It struck me as an enterprising way for a couple of college boys to dig up some extra cash. I’m assuming they were college kids—one was wearing a Notre Dame ski cap. It has been a long time since any kids knocked on the door to see about shoveling.

Today the sun has been noticeably brighter than in days past. The sky is bluer, too. We’re only a couple of weeks past the solstice, so maybe it’s all in my head. But the sun really does seem brighter today. Of course, with a fresh bright layer of snow on the ground, that’s probably the bulk of it. As much as I’d prefer not to have a foot of fresh snow at a time, it does spruce the neighborhood up nicely. Everything looks better with fresh snow. We’d already begun to acquire that smudgy February brown look before the storm, where everything looked dreary. No wonder there’s a spring to my step today. It’s really beautiful outside today and the house is filled with bright reflected light and sunshine.