_

13 degrees and dropping fast.  The temperature will slip into the single digits tonight -- with a good breeze to insinuate chill tendrils into the house's every crack and crevasse.  The boys are in short sleeves down in the basement where the fire is running hot - playing Minecraft on their computers.

  The down comforters are piled on the beds upstairs.  Potatoes are baking in the oven and Monica is fixing a gravy out of mushrooms and onions.

We've had our vintage 1954 furnace on once this winter -- when we came home from Christmas in Pennsylvania and the house was 50 degrees.  


The ancient furnace fumes and roars and would probably kill us all if we didn't open up the basement door and windows when we let it run.  But it will still send hot water through the cast iron baseboards.

Still, the wood stove does it's job, though tonight I really should get up in the night to load it an extra time.

_