Winter Is Icumen In

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

So here we are on November 19, and we woke up to snow this morning.

Well, calling it snow is certainly overstating the case. It was more like a dusting, like the peach fuzz on the face of an adolescent Old Man Winter. He won't reach full maturity for another month, but he is already feeling his oats.

Suddenly it is cold, and even The Woman Who Perpetually Perspires is seeking the polartec and the afghan.

Up until today, I have been pretty stingy about the heat in our home. Our home is heated by hot water baseboard heaters, fueled by propane. Last winter, when propane hit $3.78 per gallon, we had one or two winter months where the heating bill closed in on $1,000.00.

At that point, I became the Thermostat Nazi. I ran around the house, constantly setting and re-setting our four thermostats depending on whether or not anyone was actually in that part of the house. Why waste perfectly good heat on an empty room, was my rationale.

Of course, as the cost of fuel rose, my settings dropped. They bottomed out at a frosty 62 degrees Fahrenheit, which, while still relatively comfortable to my overheated person, was positively frigid to some of my family members. The battle of the thermostats was on!

During the summer I got the brilliant idea of installing programmable thermostats. I checked around online, and realized that not only was this an economically feasible idea, but sensibly green as well.

The first one I installed was on our separate air conditioning system, which has only one thermostat. I was similarly miserly about the air conditioning settings, figuring if I was going to sweat so much, so was everyone else in the house. Sometimes, however, when I came home from being out for several hours, the house was somehow at a temperature that keeps lettuce nice and crisp. So, the programmable thermostat went in, and locked to boot, at the Energy Star settings.

Yes, I am a control freak.

The thermostats I have chosen are by Honeywell. They are expensive, but worth it in the long run, especially since I no longer have to play thermostat roulette.

Of course, since early October when I last wrote about this subject, fuel prices in general have fallen significantly. So, I have backed off of the draconian settings a bit, especially since winter has come to visit so early.

Unfortuately, like a freeloading guest, winter will probably stay a while, if you believe the predictions of the Farmer's Almanac. It is supposed to be colder and snowier than normal, although November was supposed to be mild, so they are already off to a bad start.

Perhaps that is what happens when you predict the weather by using a pig spleen.