Aerie Report, December 17, 2009

No Global Warming here, although it did not get down to the single digits overnight like Terry told me it would. (I think she may have gotten a quick peek at the Wind Chill temperatures and thought they were the actual ones. She's done that before.) No, instead it dropped to 16 degrees as the day broke, climbed to all of 24 degrees as the sun got over the mountain and has dropped again to just 14 degrees at 7:30 PM. The good news is that the wind stopped blowing at sundown. It had been quite brisk all day and made things feel anywhere fro 5 to 10 degrees colder than they actually were. With a sparse cloud cover, the temperatures could get into the single digits tonight. At least that what weather.com and AccuHunch say.

I'm glad I'm not up at the Bolt Hole. It was just below zero before daybreak this morning, climbed way up to 14 degrees this afternoon and has fallen back to minus 2 at 8:30 PM. It will get much, much colder tonight, too.

The cold forced my hand. I built another fire in the fireplace to supplement our propane heat. I'm not worried about running out of gas. On the contrary, we got a fresh delivery Tuesday morning. I'm not sure what the charge will be as the driver didn't leave the bill at the door as he usually does. I do know that it was close to half a tank so it will add up to a sizable chink of change. Then again, our last delivery was back in the middle of October so the money is in the budget from November and December and that should more than cover the cost.

The fire serves at least three purposes: 1) aesthetics--There's nothing like sitting in the living room seeing the flicker of flame dancing across a log or the warm glow of red hot coals in the firebox. 2) warmth--With an air circulating, double walled firebox, the fireplace sucks air from the basement, blows it through the space between the double walls and pushes the warmed air out into the room. The cats especially love that as they curl up on the rug or couch directly in front of the warm air stream. 3) CO2 emissions--Now, I know that CO2 is not a major part of our atmosphere (only something in the realm of 0.039 % of our atmosphere is CO2) and that studies have shown that it increases AFTER the temperature rises not before. Still, it is considered to be a dreaded greenhouse gas. (Maybe because greenhouse growers pump the stuff inside to feed their plants?) And if there is a slight chance it will raise the temperature and prevent the next Ice Age, I'm all for it. Also, there's that whole rebel thing now that the EPA has designated it harmful to human existence. And at my age, lighting a fire's about as rebellious as I can get.

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Not much else going on around here, I'm afraid. The birds and squirrels continue to hit the feeders hard with these low temperatures and thin snow cover. Terry's still got one more PA Christmas Party with one of the EGA groups (tomorrow, I think). The Christmas Bird Count is scheduled for Saturday and Terry and I will be going over to Ive's Run and Crooked Creek again this year. I haven't been over there since just before Thanksgiving so it will be interesting to see what birds might be on Hammond and Tioga Lakes as well as along the Railroad Grade Road that runs along Crooked Creek. It's supposed to be a bit warmer on Saturday, too, up near 30 degrees, so it should be a good day to do some bird watching/counting.

I finished the wooden quilt square today. That makes three I've completed. One's all I'm keeping though. The other two are going out as Christmas presents. Time to start cleaning up the shop and clearing space around the scrollsaw for the next project(s).

Well, that's about all for now. Time to throw another log on the fire, have a beer and then hit the hay. See ya tomorrow.