Our New England Winter (thus far)

As much as I dislike this cold weather, there's something almost magical when our world is covered in a fresh coat of snow.



The beginning of December was quite stormy for us, and we fully expected that to continue through the winter based on long term forecasts and predictions, but it has remained somewhat mild thus far, which is not completely unusual.  Snow totals, temperature, everything can vary so much year to year.







I often wonder if the cold air would be more tolerable if there was light.  There's a lot of darkness here during the winter months.  In December, the sun sets at 4:15 in the afternoon.  We awaken in the morning to complete darkness.  At least now the sun sets just after 5:00, but there is still so much darkness.  The sun hangs low in the sky, barely skimming over the tops of the old pines in the neighbor's yard.  When the sky is clear, I like to leave the van in the driveway to use solar energy to heat it up, versus sitting up at the school with it running.  Those days are few and far between right now.


It was pretty for the holiday season.











We woke up a couple of weeks ago to a dead furnace.  Rich and Allie had noticed that the temperature seemed off before we all went to bed so the heat had been off all night.  Thankfully, we have space heaters and an HVAC guy.  Because our basement was finished after the house was constructed, there's a separate heating unit down there.  It's an electric wall unit, like one you would find in a hotel room.  So I spent the morning taking care of stuff down there.

If you're a new homeowner in a cold climate, I would recommend finding a reliable HVAC person before you need one.  And keeping a space heater in storage.













School snow day count = 1