Monday, December 13, 2010

House is Warm


Boy it is cold this morning, but the house is warm. That Alberta clipper chased me out of Chicago and is dumping Lake Michigan's water on our farm. We have a few inches of snow which slows down or shuts down everything around here.

It is so nice to type my blog in a warm house this morning. I didn't do that for six years.

Yes, we just got central heat and air this year.

We heated with wood and corn and some electricity since we moved here and used window air conditioners the few days it was unbearable in summer.

We got just desperate enough to go to central heat because we are older, my joints hurt more and the crop was just good enough to have a little extra money this year.

We are like kids in the candy store. We can talk and do other things without tending stoves. We have a real life.

Before, on a day like today, I would be building a big fire in the Vermont Castings while building a smaller one in the pellet stove. Not that we can't, I just don't have to wake up to a cold house anymore unless the electricity goes out.

One month's gas and electric bill might send me right back to the wood pile but it sure feels good this morning.

I think dad would have done the same thing the last six years to have this farm but he wouldn't have admitted to it. He got central heat in 1958. I remember him saying "I don't care what oil costs I am not going to split another rick of wood."

He meant it too, but when I started heating with wood in the 70's, he helped me cut a lot of ricks on his farm just to try and start cleaning fence rows up again. They hadn't seen attention since the 50's.

I know, I am a little woodsy and a little backward. Always have been.

It sure feels good to wake up to a warm house on a pretty artic day for southern Ohio. I bet there are a lot of "snow days" here today when they call off school because of the weather. All the schools are on a delay so far.

Ed

16 comments:

  1. I had always lived in hundred year old houses and heated with wood. They have lots of character and I love the warmth of a fireplace or a wood stove on a cold morning.
    Then we moved to the farm and put up a manufactured home. It is incredible! It is well insulated and is heated by just a small electric furnace. I really mean to put a wood stove in but... I suppose the electricity prices will drive me too it but it was $125 last month and I paid that much with a wood stove and a 110 year old drafty house!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lots of farmers have Budde. We finally made enough money off this farm to put in central heat!

    I know some farmers look rich but we are rich in spirit.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  3. This house has had central heat since my grandfather had it built in 1920. But coal and wood furnaces were a far cry from the self regulating high efficiency natural gas furnace I rely on now. Coal dust, ashes and chimney fires helped convince my Dad in the 1960s to upgrade to oil heat. When natural gas came to the area he was all for that and I really appreciate it. Still, hard to beat the heat of a good old cast iron wood burning kitchen stove on these cold days.

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  4. Never experienced the coal dust Ralph but know it isn't clean. Worst part of the wood stove is fueling it and feeding it.

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