We are experiencing a brief cold snap. It warmed up to -14C this morning, and the forecast low tonight is -18C. This has Attila and I appreciating our heating system and our beloved thermostat.
I am not going out for a walk today, it is just too cold for my arthritic knee. It is a shame really, the sun is shining this morning, and the road mostly clear. Yesterday I did go out for a stroll, but had to walk down the middle of the road from time to time, due to the ice left by our recent deluge of freezing rain. It was not a relaxing walk, but I was glad of it, and enjoyed the sunshine very much indeed.
Well, if there was ever a more mundane topic to write about than thermostat settings, I don’t know what it would be. I decided this morning, as I sat oh so comfortably in my rocking chair, that Mist Cottage is just about perfect right now. In order to remember how I achieved that feeling, recorded here are the thermostat settings and other pertinent factors that make life here, right now, so very comfortable. My memory is such that these kinds of details are not retained, I make no effort to retain them, I never have, and probably never will. In honour of my own idiosyncrasies I chronicle little details that I might appreciate later.
Thermostat Day Time Setting: 21.5C
Thermostat Night Time Setting: 18CHumidity:
Honeywell Steam Humidifier Unit In Living Room: Low Setting
Alternatively freshly washed clothing drying on racks in the front bedroom.Entrance:
Using the entrance through the garage to the basement door. Opening front door in living room on main floor only for deliveries.Clothing:
Layers
t-shirt, turtle neck shirt, unlined fleece jacket
trousers, knee warmer when needed, socks, slippers
Note: It is necessary to temporarily remove the unlined fleece jacket if any physically active task is undertaken.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-14°C
Date: 9:00 AM EST Thursday 9 February 2017
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.5 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: -14.1°C
Dew point: -20.1°C
Humidity: 61%
Wind: N 23 km/h
Wind Chill: -24
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.”
Mark Twain
1835 – 1910
It was supposed to be a joke, not taken literally!
We got down to -11C last night. After all the rain and freezing rain, our wood deck along our bedroom didn’t like it at all. From about 11PM to 2AM we were treated to loud booming noises as the wood of the deck conditioned to the new frigid temperatures. It was quite startling, sounding like someone was throwing large snowballs at the sliding glass doors.
After a month long cold snap, we on the Pacific North West coast are finally treated to some rain! Just in time—this was really getting to me!
Teri, those sounds are spooky! We haven’t heard them here at Mist Cottage, and I don’t miss them. At the country house the cracking didn’t begin until the thermometer dipped below -25C, but that is probably because the temperatures there were usually much colder to start with. Even the trees began to crack loudly when it got down below -30C, and I don’t miss that either. I don’t think we dipped below -20 here at Mist Cottage this winter, wonderful!
It is a bit scarier I would think when the cracking noises occur near glass!
I wonder what a cold snap means on the Pacific North West Diane? It seems to me it would be moderate, but very damp and bone chilling.
Glad to hear you are warming up in your neck of the woods! Rain is better than the white stuff!
When I was a child in Seattle a cold snap meant that the day time high was (just) below freezing. I can remember only 2 times that happened. We had snow both times, once about 2 inches and the other about 5 inches.
I remember building a snowman with my mother. It was cold enough that she went and got a pan of boiling water and poured it on the snowman so he’d ice up and last longer once the temps went back to normal (40sF).
Teri, that is something, remembering every snowfall over a period of years! The snowman sounds like fun, a happy memory with your mother.