About 2 weeks ago our fuel oil company called to let us know that another round of HEAP allotments were going to be coming out and be sure to sign up. Well, I know that you have to have 1/4 tank or less to qualify and we had just less than 1/2 a tank at that time so I figured we had to 'burn down' some. After the super cold spell we had the last few weeks with daytime temperatures below freezing and nighttime below zero I knew we'd get down to 1/4 of a tank pretty quickly. Jeff thought we had done it by Sunday so I planned to call HEAP and signup on Monday but I got busy and never got to it.
Tuesday morning we woke up to a cold house. We had run out of fuel oil sometime in the early morning and the house got chilly quickly!! Jeff started a fire in the woodstove and kept it going all day. He even went to town and got a couple of more bundles of wood to be sure we had enough...besides what was in the garage. He stayed up all night Tuesday feeding the fire and the house stayed comfortable. We have a fan in between the TV room where the woodstove is and the rest of the house and that keeps the kitchen and parlor very cozy. In fact, the butter in the butterdish on the kitchen table was softer on Tues & Wed than it's been since August!
It was my turn to feed the stove during the day on Wednesday while waiting for the oil delivery and Jeff got some sleep. I sat in the parlor working on a shawl, watching the clock so I could feed the fire on a regular basis. The thermomature on the wall by my computer showed that the temperature in the parlor stayed between 70 and 72 all day except for one spike when it went up to 75! Quess that piece of wood was extra heavy. The oil delivery finally came around 3:30pm.
Fuel oil in upstate central New York this week is going for $4.03 a gallon (our empty tank took 250 gals), because we were on 'empty' it was considered an 'off-day' delivery and we were charged an extra$65, and to have the guy come in and start the burner cost another $25. The wood Jeff bought was $9.75 a bundle and he got 3 bundles. I'll leave the math to the reader but it was an expensive cold day. Oh, and there was 8.5% sales tax on everything, too! Still it was nice to have the woodstove to fall back on. In fact, I don't remember the last time it had been that comfortable in the house. You can't beat wood heat.
Here's the shawl I'm working on: "Easy as Pie' by Marissa Hernandez, available on Ravelry. I'm doing it with Sundara Yarn's "Hills of Mist", a 100% superwash extra fine merino on US5's. I've got 145 sts heading for 207. It will stretch out and look 'finer' after it's washed and blocked. It gets a 30-row edging of lace to finish it offf. The price for this shawl will probably be $80. I've got another hank of this yarn but I think I've got to find another pattern. I ordered yarn from Knitpicks, too. I'm hoping I can do 4 or 5 shawls to add to my display in the shop for our April reopening. I had thought of doing 'smalls' but my hands don't like that idea too much. I think I'd be better off doing a shawl (that sells for $80) than 6 small things that sell for a total of $80.
No comments:
Post a Comment