Friday, February 10, 2006, 1:30 pm: Finally seasonable weather! I was starting to miss the frigid temperatures. Our low today was -14 degrees Fahrenheit at 6:35 am, and our low on Thursday was -7 degrees at 6:15 am. Now that’s what I call Maine weather. I was worried!

The propane technician from our bottled gas company left just a few minutes ago. It seems I had a lapse of memory, and I forgot how to relight the pilot light in our back-up heater. We use the back-up heater that is built into in our stove when we expect sub-zero temperatures. Well we don’t actually use it, but in the event I sleep through the night without getting up to throw on a few logs on the fire, the inside temperature will plummet quickly; so the heater will kick in and keep the house in the mid 50s. I suppose if being stupid was politically incorrect I would have been hosting some radio talk show long ago.

Because we’re expecting a large snow storm this weekend we drove to town for supplies. We also brought in additional firewood to fend off the cold. I know it’s truly cold enough now, because the logging trucks are driving down our road loaded with freshly harvested timber from deep in the woods; fortunately not from our property.

Current Values from our
Vantage-Pro weather station:

Temperature: 5 degrees (F.)

Wind Chill: 1 degree (F.)

Barometer: 29.90 and steady

Humidity: 58%

Wind: NW 2 mph

Since midnight:

Low Temp: -14 degrees (F.) at 6:35 am

High Wind: 13 mph at 12:52 pm

West from our house across the St. John River in St. Anne-de-Madawaska, NB