It has turned cold in Central Oklahoma. Temperature about 30 degrees. We've had snow, ice, and mixture of freezing rain and rain. There is a layer of ice on the trees and high lines, our roads are icey. I'm hoping we don't lose power. I don't know how far south this winter mix will go but this is our first winter cold snap. I'm getting my backup oxygen tank ready in case we do lose power. It is something of a hassle if I'm not prepared. I'm setting in my office and it's a bit cool. Made a pot of coffee and pored it in the thermus. I'm going to have a ham & cheese sandwich, a cup of coffee, and read for a while.
That stinks. I can only imagine struggling with that stuff by flashlight. I assume you don't light candles around it, huh?
No, have no candles. I don't even have a match in the house, but I know my neighbor brought over a large box of stick matches last year but cant find them. However, I do consider candles to be dangerous in our hands. Wife can’t see; at times I get so short of breath i couldn’t handle a match or a candle. And with oxygen that’s dangerous in its self. We're both getting a little bit feeble, physically.
My place has zero insulation, so I gotta heat with wood when the temps get in the 30s. I guess that's my "winter weather" threshold. I've already stacked some on the front porch and have cut kindling. I don't split my own firewood, though. I "Buy Local."
You might check around to see if you can get this done. Our house was fully insulated for free (to us) through a grant from one of several non-profits pushing for energy savings. Qualifying for it was not based on income, but we were recommended to them by another non-profit agency - one on aging. They insulated the entire house, including sealing the crawl space, and they also installed a heat pump, through which we can reduce our dependence on oil heat. None of this cost us a cent. Prior to that, parts of our century-old house had been insulated with newspapers which had since disintegrated, falling to the bottom.
we're getting cold rain...we like a fire in the fireplace...been cutting wood for the last month...although we have electric heat...we have a fire everyday... right now i need to go shovel out ashes...start a new fire
No winter weather here yet in PA but we night get flurries Thursday night from the leftovers of Zeta; then turning colder. Hunker down and be safe Bill.
@Bill Boggs, do you use battery operated lanterns instead of candles for lighting when there's no power? If not, something you might want to consider. I purchased several and keep batteries stocked after a power outtage and set them around the house to be accessible.
We have some that charge with usb, and when the weather seem like a storm is coming, we make sure that everything is charged up, including the usb lanterns. Except for when we had those bad tornadoes, we have not had a power outage that lasted more than a few hours here, thankfully. Ice storms are often worse than snow storms, and it looks like most of Oklahoma is having to deal with this right now, from the looks of our weather radar app on my iPad.