160 - Arctic Mass
Keeping in mind this was composed two days before you’re seeing it, if you were lucky, you dodged the massive blizzard dumping snow across the North America’s, however, if you lived anywhere in the middle of the United States you didn’t dodge the extreme cold. This morning when I got up it was -3°F and as the day progresses the temperature has kept dropping! It’s nearly -6°F right now and it’s almost noon!
I decided it was time to fire up our wood burning furnace, normally an easy job. Not today though - it was so cold getting an updraft proved to be difficult. This was compounded when my wife told me to take a look at the top of the chimney where I saw at some point this past season a bird decided to build a nest on its lip, effectively blocking some of the air flow!
I finally got one started but it took way longer than usual.
The nice thing about a wood burning furnace is it’s almost the same as radiator heat - not dry at all, and very comfortable, unlike forced air, and it’s static electricity laden dryness.
Unfortunately, it’s also messy and there’s a certain amount of fussiness maintaining it, which is why I only start it up when the cold gets extreme.
