TOWNER, N.D. -- It's an annual fall ritual around here. The weather cools off, we get a couple hard frosts at night, we pull out some extra quilts for the kids and us, and my wife and I walk by the house's wall thermostat and wonder who's going to blink first and turn on the heat this fall.
I like to think that every day we bypass the thermostat we've saved another day's college tuition for our children, or maybe the cost of a cup of coffee on that trip to Norway we claim we'll take someday. At the least, I hope the money saved on the heat bill will cover the co-pay on the doctor visit to treat the frostbite on my toes that accidentally poked out from under the quilts and blankets on these frosty mornings.
Just like jackets, we're quick to pull on a coat in fall and quick to take it off in spring even though the mercury in the thermometer reads exactly the same at both points of time. Forty degrees in fall feels a lot colder than 40 degrees in spring. In spring in North Dakota, that's T-shirt weather.
We practiced for the inevitable cool fall weather when we pitched a tent in the high elevations of Idaho on our family trip west this summer.
It seemed like a nice day and a good idea, but when we woke up the next morning, it was 35 degrees and we all were zipped in to some 50-degree sleeping bags. It put a sharp point on the importance of family togetherness. Nylon tents don't have a real high insulating R-value.
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Time to insulate
In North Dakota, where the oil boom has workers living in tents, campers and cars; and devastating floods have families living in FEMA trailers, fall and winter weather isn't something people are anxious to see coming.
There'll be a lot of insulated skirting going on a lot of trailers and RV's these next few weeks, a lot of pipes getting wrapped with insulation and a few faucets being turned on in the evening to run through the night to keep things from freezing.
As for my wife and me, we'll continue to cheat a little on the thermostat challenge as we head into October. A small space heater or two might find its way next to my feet at the breakfast table. I might turn on the oven, not to cook or bake, because I'm pretty inept at both, but because it feels so good when you drop the oven door down and feel that heat hit your cold, stiff knees.
These are the mornings when I wish we had a wood-burning stove. Light a little fire and stand next to it clutching a hot cup of coffee while you soak up the heat radiating from a few sticks of fast-burning cottonwood. Then let the fire burn down and do it again the next day.
I reckon we won't be able to avoid winter or the need to heat our home much longer, but we might get in another week without flipping the switch on the thermostat. And, the handy thing is, with those indoor overnight temperatures, I can leave the milk out on the table at night and still pour myself a cold glass in the morning.
Cheers. Here's to autumn.
