Continued cold and snow

This week has been very cold. Everyone is talking about how cold it is and how difficult it is to keep houses warm. The price of heating oil does not help at all. Electric heat is a little better, but to heat a whole house requires converting everything to electric heat -- an expensive up-front proposition.

Anyway, Monday morning saw the coldest temperatures. Officially it was 1F at the airport. Here at our house, I saw 8F register as the lowest temp. Sunday and Monday was clear which led to the extreme cold (for us anyway). I awoke early Monday morning -- about 4 a.m. -- couldn't get back to sleep so I wandered downstairs to check up on the basement temperature. It was dangerously close to freezing -- 33F. Alarmed, I quickly took the space heater we normally use in the dining area and turned it on in the basement. So we have 1500W of heat blowing down there since Monday. It is keeping the temperature down there at refrigerator levels rather than walk-in freezer levels. I've also had to use the big furnace just to keep the house at 60-62F. We might need to find an alternate method of heating if the oil prices continue to rise. Everyone is suffering from the costs, but in particular those that were in the past just barely making it.

High clouds came in yesterday, and the temperature rose to an almost tropical 21F or so. More clouds rolled in and with it came snow. The forecast said 1-inch. Ha! By the time I got out to shovel around 11 a.m. today, there was about 5-6 inches of light, fluffy snow. And it keeps coming. The driveway once again looks like it did a few hours ago.

Since it was cold, I took the bicycle to town this morning. As long as it is cold, the snow is dry so it doesn't stick to the tires or the frame, and the tire treads don't get all gummed up with the snow. It was fairly easy going, both there and back.

Shoveling was yet again a chore. And I think today, I'm going to have to shovel again before nightfall. The last couple of times I mentioned shoveling again on this blog, I actually did not because the snow stopped. But today, I don't see that happening and there is already enough that needs to be cleared away.

This weather pattern is apparently expected to continue until next week when we will finally see temperatures rise above freezing. And then we'll have several days of a royal mess of things as the snow thaws, refreezes, get really slick, and so on.