The Furnace is Down, Still.

                 Our furnace has not been functional for 12 days and we are pretty sure it will be off until after the Thanksgiving weekend. It’s chilly in here.

                On the positive side, we have small old house—there are doors to the bedrooms and bathroom that we have shut so that we are only heating the living room with some overflow into the kitchen. Years ago, we insulated the ceiling, floor, and walls, and replaced the storm windows so our house is much tighter than most—my New England training came to the fore as we planned for energy efficiency. I pull the curtains closed at night. We don’t have a modern, open floor plan with vaulted ceilings. It’s easier to heat with the space heater. The bedroom is in the 40s, but we burrow under the blankets and its fine. I’ve had some experience with cold houses.

                One winter, the landlord paid for the heat in our duplex, but added a surcharge to the rent if it exceeded a certain cost; heating oil was skyrocketing that winter and he needed a plan. We wandered around wrapped in old shawls and my baby blanket all winter. No surcharge. A few years later, I moved into an apartment with a full tank of heating oil free from the last tenant. The winter’s goal quickly became—make it last. We did. Lots of movies from bed. Weeks of fleece jackets in the house. Mornings spent snuggling up to the bakery oven at work to warm up. Even now, I keep the heat down in the house and put on a sweater. When I am gone, Mark nudges it up a few degrees. He calls me an Ice Princess. I call him a wimp.

                We count our blessings here, coming into Thanksgiving. We are not living in a tent using a dangerous propane heater. We are healthy and our bodies have adjusted to cooler temperatures (ok, mine does better than Mark’s). We can afford to repair—or replace—our furnace when the parts finally arrive.  We have soft wool hats. We are not trying to work from home; we both have jobs with decent heat all day. We have gone for long walks on these sunny afternoons to warm up and the world is lovely this cold and bright November. We are thankful.

 

November Silence

     

November 11^th—Veteran’s Day—has always been a quiet break in my life.  In college, it was the time to catch up on back reading. As a teacher, it is a time to catch up on silence. This year was no exception. Mark went to work, leaving me alone in the house, a rare occurrence since the pandemic began and he moved his office into the basement. The morning was sunny, but chilly, with rain clouds on the western horizon. I headed outside right after breakfast. The cat followed.

For the next three hours, I puttered around the yard with trimmers and a wheelbarrow, cutting back perennials and piling  the leaves in the front beds, spreading compost, and  and generally tidying up.  Kayli sat in the neighbor’s driveway and washed, hoping for a college boy to stop and worship her. No one did.  When I moved around back she gave up,  wandered after me, and climbed up on the roof of the garage, one of her favorite spots. I took out the last two tomato plants and raked leaves, moved some plants into the greenhouse and rearranged them, and dumped the compost bin into the back hoop. The rabbit ate fallen jujube fruits and the chickens carried on their usual conversations about wanting to be let out. The clouds gathered and, just as I finished, cold rain began to fall. I propped up the wheelbarrow, coaxed the cat off of the fence, and fled inside.

Even though the furnace is out, the house is cozy. The yellow walls glow against grey light outside. There was an excellent bit of left-over casserole for lunch with the latest National Geographic article on a new museum in Egypt. After lunch,   I made a second cup of tea and moved into the living room, where the cat had discovered the space heater. Perfect. Rain outside. Juncos discovering the seed I had just spread on the ladder in front of the window. Blanket, tea, couch, cat, book inside.  We spent the second half of the day in companionable silence.