The rodent says

Today is Groundhog Day and the rodent on Gobbler’s Knob saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter. Given that today’s high temperature is 52°, I say let’s have more of this very same winter stuff. I have a feeling that the rotten little rodent probably really does mean winter and we’ll get our six more weeks of it in April and May.

Meanwhile, here on the ranch, it’s raining out and dreary, dreary, dreary. And damp. I started a fire in the stove this morning to take the chill out and discovered something interesting. Well, let me rephrase that. It wasn’t that I discovered something interesting as much as I was reminded anew that putting off a chore can have consequences.

The new gasket that I cemented onto the stove’s door should have been done much earlier in the season. The old one was pretty shot and I knew that. What I didn’t realize was that it was so shot that it was letting a lot of air into the stove, thereby burning my wood at a vastly faster rate than it should have burned. Now that the new gasket is on, the stove is airtight. And my wood burns much more slowly (and hotter) and lasts a couple of hours longer per burn.

Obviously, had I replaced the gasket earlier in the season, I would have burned much less wood. So now I’m annoyed with myself for putting off something that took all of 15 minutes to do and was easy and no particular trouble. Yes, I am really, really annoyed with myself.

But the chore is done and it’s working the way it’s supposed to and I still have a fairly decent supply of wood left—which will now last me longer than I’d expected. So that, I suppose, is sort of a silver lining.

Another bright spot in the day—the lad feels almost back to normal this afternoon. He looks much better, feels much better, and he sounds much better. Still no solid food going down, but at least nothing is coming back up. His friends have been calling this afternoon wondering where he’s been and what’s up. Missing two days of school is not too shocking, apparently. But when one of their mates misses three days in a row, that’s cause for concern and the cell phones whipped out almost as soon as classes ended today. That was kinda sweet. Sure made him feel better.