Give Your Furnace the Cold Shoulder

It’s October and temperatures have dropped quickly here in Wisconsin.  In just a few days we went from overnight lows in the 60’s to lows in the 40’s.  The cattle are frisking about the pasture, absolutely joyful to have a break from the summer heat and humidity.  The pigs cannot get enough to eat as their instincts are telling them it’s time to start packing on the fat (they don’t know that Mike the Butcher is coming tomorrow).  Many of my friends are posting on Facebook that they have given in and have turned on their furnaces or that they are thinking about it. Even though I am the personification of the term “Freeze Baby” and there are few things I love as much as a fire in the wood stove, I am not ready to give in just yet.  

Not much comes easily here and we don’t take much for granted.  The other day, we were talking about firewood with some friends, fellow farmers.  Someone said, “It’s not like it grows on trees.”  Well, literally speaking, yes it does but it takes time and energy to cut, haul, and stack.  Or you shell out the hard earned dough to pay someone else to do it.  So, even though I am the first one to complain about being cold, I will be one of the last to light a fire in the wood stove or turn on the heat.  No, I won’t be walking around my house bundled up in outerwear.  Socks and a sweatshirt?  Sure, but no abominable snowman attire needed.  Here are the little things we do the keep the cold at bay for a few more weeks and keep fuel usage in the coldest days of winter.

Take advantage of the daytime sun. 

Open curtains and blinds on East facing windows in the morning and on West facing windows at night.  Close the blinds when the sun isn’t shining directly in.  I am constantly amazed at how much heat the house picks up from the sun, even on really cold days, when we do this.

Close doors. 

My son lives with me for a week, then with his dad for a week.  When he is not here, his bedroom door is closed.  We also have a small room at the front of the house we call the “summer kitchen”.  It has large windows and protrudes from the living space so that it is less sheltered by rest of the house.  The door separating this room from the rest of the house is closed at night and open it in the morning while the sun is shining in, allowing the warmth that gathers in that room to flow through the house.  At the top or bottom of staircases many homes have doors.  We have a heavy curtain at the top of the steps.  I open or close the curtain to regulate the temp between the upper and lower levels as needed. 

Get in the kitchen.

In the summertime I do not cook pot-roast. I buy my bread and cookies and other baked goods from the Amish bakery down the road or the Co-op.  Now that the weather has cooled it’s time bring the roasting pans, cookie sheets and crock-pot up from storage in the basement.  During the early fall when days that are warm and nights are cool, I bake cookies, cakes, crisps, bread, and other baked items in the evenings.  Crock-pot oatmeal adds a little overnight heat and takes the chill off the morning air.  Later in the season I will add crock-pot meals on weekdays when I am not home to come home to a ready meal and a warm house.  On work from home and weekend days I will simmer soups and sauces, make stock from the bones I freeze all year long, and slow cook roasts, whole chickens, and ribs.  I will pull the produce that I froze earlier in the fall from the freezer for canning, adding both heat and moisture to the dry, cold winter air.

Some of these things may seem simple, “no-brainers” for many of you.  But I never thought of these things when I lived in an apartment in the city.  I didn’t need to.  I just turned on the heat when I got cold.  Opening and closing doors and curtains is about as simple as it gets.  If you are going to cook anyway why not make the most of it? Maybe you’re not a baker or don’t love to cook.  Crock-pots are excellent tools for those who don’t love to cook or think they don’t have the time and there are many simple recipes that just take a few minutes of prep time.  These simple measures can reduce your fuel usage, reduce your heating costs, and reduce your carbon footprint.  Please share your simple ideas in the comments below!

Broken Human Beings

I was grocery shopping the other day and witnessed a toddler throwing a tantrum.  Screaming and twisting in the seat of the cart, he threw his bottle on the floor. Mom calmly picked up the bottle and gave the boy a pacifier, which he threw back at her.  "Fine", she said as she put the bottle and the pacifier in her purse.  The boy turned, reaching for items from the shelves to throw and when mom moved the cart to the middle of the aisle, he reached into the cart behind him and grabbed a bag of chips.  As he was winding up to throw, she quickly unbuckled him and scooped him up out of the seat and into her arms.  Cradling his head against her chest, she rocked back and forth whispering, "What's wrong, My Little Man?  Why are you so upset?"

"Owie!" he cried.  By this time I was at the far end of the aisle so I did not see what she found or did but when she put him back in the cart a moment later he was babbling happily, asking for his bottle.

Later that same night I woke up to the sound of my dog chewing on his bed.  I told him "no" and I took it away.  He immediately began to search for something else to chew on.  He grabbed a pair of pants from the hamper.  I took those away as well.  When he started to gnaw on the corner of a cabinet I put him in his kennel with a few toys until morning.  This morning I will take him for a long run because I know that I cannot cure the anxiousness or boredom that is causing the destructive behavior by removing the objects he wants to chew.  For every object I remove he will find another.

I believe that most people, regardless of their religion, political views, or personal beliefs would see the reason behind the actions taken to resolve these two very different problems.  That is why I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people's attention, when faced with another instance of violence in the news, is focused on the weapon rather than the fact that a human being is compelled to not just end the lives of others, but to do so in a way that terrorizes all of us.  If a person has a desire to kill and they do not have access to a gun, there a many other ways to accomplish their goals that are just as accessible.  Home made bombs are quite simple to make and the ingredients can be purchased at any Walmart.  Driving a vehicle into a crowd would certainly cause massive damage.  Poisoning food?  Water?  Air?  These are just the simple, obvious choices.  Someone with a true desire to cause harm would, I'm sure, come up with more creative and media worthy ideas.  Timothy McVeigh did.  So did Andrew Kehoe, who executed one of the largest school related mass killings in US history.  And the two brothers who killed their family in their home just a few months ago. We didn't even hear about them on the news.  There are many more examples here under point #3.

I am a gun owner.  I am not a member of the NRA.  I am not opposed to background checks. I am completely in support of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill however, I do not believe that is an attainable goal. Rational thinking tells us that someone who intends to use a gun to break a law (homicide,  theft, assault, etc. ) will not be deterred by the fact that owning a gun is against the law.  Historically, gun laws have not reduced instances of gun violence.  During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower. In 1997, Britain passed a law requiring civilians to surrender almost all privately owned handguns to the police. The homicide rate in England and Wales has averaged 52% higher since the outset of the 1968 gun control law and 15% higher since the outset of the 1997 handgun ban.  In 1982, the city of Chicago instituted a ban on handguns. This ban barred civilians from possessing handguns except for those registered with the city government prior to enactment of the law. Since the outset of the Chicago handgun ban, the Chicago murder rate has averaged 17% lower than it was before the law took effect, while the U.S. murder rate has averaged 25% lower.  On October 1, 1987, Florida's right-to-carry law became effective.  Since the outset of the Florida right-to-carry law, the Florida murder rate has averaged 36% lower than it was before the law took effect, while the U.S. murder rate has averaged 15% lower.  Guns are not the problem.  Knives and bombs and poison are not the problem.  Broken human beings are the problem.


P.S.
I've been thinking a lot about the hero, Chris Minz, in this most recent attack.  An army veteran, he rushed in from the classroom next door when he heard the attack instead of running away.  Unarmed, he tried to talk the gunman down and was shot several times.  I wonder how things might have turned out differently if Chris Minz had been carrying a gun that day.