Sunday, 8:00 AM. 26 degrees, wind W, calm. The sky is overcast with snow clouds, and it is snowing lightly. The barometer predicts more snow, of which there is a thin covering on the roads, encouraging me to don my Yak Tracks to keep from slipping.I have been hauling firewood and the dry oak burns like coal. Does anyone else remember heating homes with coal? My mother always said, “it’s a nice steady heat,” as the temperature hit 90 degrees in the house and I went gasping to the kitchen door for air. The good thing about coal is that one could fill the basement coal bin in the summer when there was money, and be secure and warm without a heating bill all winter. My mother liked the house hot, as they almost froze to death during frigid Wisconsin winters when she was a child. She used to say, “I wouldn’t mind going to Hell, at least I’d be warm.” Then she would tell stories about it being so cold in the house that water would freeze in the bucket and would have to be thawed out on the wood stove to make coffee, or about getting dressed for school while under the bed covers, to keep warm. I can still see my grandfather sitting in front of the pot-bellied parlor stove, feeding it previously pruned apple tree branches one by one, along with an occasional lump of soft coal. And we complain when we have to lower the thermostat to 60 degrees to save on the gas bill.
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