It is only 9:30AM and I have been up over four and a half hours. When I went to bed last night it was -10F. I was lying in bed and I thought, " We should have a fire in our wood stove". We have a geothermal heat system. It works great down to about ten to fifteen below zero. If it gets much below that it won't turn off and allow the coils to pick up heat from the ground. The system works by having coils filled with liquid buried fifteen feet in the ground. They absorb heat from the ground and the liquid is pumped through a heat exchanger. The heat is concentrated and blown through traditional hot air heating vents and the liquid is returned to the ground to pick up more heat. The thermostat must turn the pump off for enough time for the coils to absorb heat. We have friends that think 68 degrees is cozy and if we were like that the system would probably work well without an assist from the wood stove. However, we think cozy starts at 73 degrees. Just to avoid problems we generally fire up the stove if it is going to be more than ten degrees below zero.
In any case, I was lying in bed last night and I knew the forecast was for around fifteen below. I wasn't too concerned about it and I fell asleep just fine; but, I awoke about 4:AM and wondered about it. The house was warm and there was warm air coming from the registers, so I knew the furnace was working okay. I didn't seem to be anxious but I was wide awake. Eventually I got up and came down stairs, it was about 5AM. I made a fire, washed the dishes, meditated for awhile looking at the fire [there are glass doors on the stove]. I love getting up early and I was not aware of being tired, with only four hours sleep. I am beginning to be aware of it.
Well, I am not a fountain of wisdom this Morning. I don't think I can force myself to come up with much to write about. Everything is going well for us. The animals don't seem to mind the cold. The chicken water had a good crust of ice on it, but their coop is not very cold; it feels warm compared to the outside.
One more thought about the heating system: one may ask, "Why don't you just turn the thermostat down to the low sixties at night, then there would be no problem?" Yes, we could do that. However, unlike a system that uses combustion, the air coming from the registers is warm, never hot. It would take hours to raise the temperature from the low sixties to 73 degrees. I will turn it down to 68 or 70 at night in cold weather.
Except for my time in the Air Force [four years], I have experienced every Winter in Minnesota. I have only had one Winter vacation and that was to Idaho and it was Winter there too. So I am inured to Winter. When I was younger I couldn't understand people who fled Minnesota Winters for Southern climes. About ten years ago I began to appreciate their decisions.
If it wasn't for the Holidays, Winter would be more grim. November is sometimes Winter and sometimes Autumn, but we have Thanksgiving to brighten up our days. The Christmas Season keeps up our spirits in December. Hopefully, that glow last the first week or so of January, then my birthday is January 24th. So, I think the only unbroken month of Winter is February. March can be extremely Wintery, but we are looking forward to Spring so that doesn't count.
As I have stated before, all we can do about life is to love every bit of it. There is always something to celebrate.
Love and Peace, Gregg
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