It is a day to stay in. No doctors appointments. Nothing I need to buy. There is plenty of food in the house. There is no reason to go out. I am enjoying the flurries and the swarms of birds I can see out my large dining room window. The first thing I did after dressing was put out more sunflower seed.
I am almost finished with my morning coffee. The hour, though, is late morning. I am about to start the coal stove. Everything is set: there is wood I collected and coal in buckets. I just have to play with it.
Last night I was up in the wee hours (1:20AM) reading a book I could not put down (“The Soloist”). It was made into a movie I wanted to see and could not find. I happened to be in the library and was looking for the movie to rent but they did not have it.
It never occurred to me until then to read the book. The prose was scintillating. I was riveted by the writing and could not put it down last night until I finished it. Now my wife is also reading “The Soloist”.
Tags: "The Soloist", bird feeding, bird-watching, birds, book, coal stove, firewood, large window, library, morning coffee, movie, plenty of food, reading, snow flurries, stay indoors, sunflower seed
Posted in beauty, birds, local, mental health, relationships, time |
The temperature is always relative. Someone I knew at the local library was from Minnesota where temperatures in the winter often fall thirty or forty below zero and was not fazed by single digits temperatures.
This week the temperatures were in the twenties and thirties and I thought we had a minor heat wave although keeping the house heated for over two days by our coal stove had something to do with that.
It became down right toasty in our house and I had to discard my thermal underwear. And other extra layers. It always depends what temperature is normal for that time of year.
I am starting to count the weeks of winter that have gone by. It is still too early for my yearly countdown to spring. But it is getting there.
Tags: coal stove, cold temperatures, countdown to Spring, spring, thermal underwear, winter
Posted in local, seasons, time |
All I want to do is hibernate today: it is 23 degrees out. I am trying to think positive. A month of winter is gone–almost. No snowstorms yet. Meanwhile I glance out my large living room window periodically and watch the multitude of birds feeding on the sunflower seed I have strewn on the ground and placed elsewhere. Soon night fall will come and in two days a person will check our chimney (and clean it if it is necessary) and it will be safe to heat our house with coal and wood and it will be toasty, again, in our house.
Tags: bird feeding, bird-watching, birds, chimney, coal stove, heat, hibernate, snow, sunflower seed, winter, wood stove
Posted in birds, life, local, nature, seasons, time |
It was cold, wet and damp. To think fall was only a few weeks in and winter was next was down right depressing. I wish I could hibernate. Somehow I have to bear it (please excuse my unintentional pun). But that does not make it any easier. I will stay in, hopefully run my coal stove when the really cold weather arrives. I have had a full bin of coal that has been sitting there in back of the house for over two years. The only reason the stove has not been used there are too many boxes in that room but this year I am going to move them so I can finally light the stove. And reduce my electric bill. They are calling for colder weather than usual, so I have an incentive to move those boxes.
Tags: coal stove, cold weather, electric bill, Fall, have to bear it, hibernate, wet and damp, winter
Posted in local, nature, seasons, time |
