Last night we were under a wind chill advisory, and I could actually feel tiny puffs of cold air blowing in around the bottom of the window and sliding door frames. So I rolled some thin blankets against the edge of the worst windows, and got out our one lone sleeping bag to put in front of the kitchen slider. When I pulled the sleeping bag away from the glass door this morning, this is what I saw:
Then I went downstairs to start the laundry. Brrr, it’s cold down here! I checked the temperature by the basement sliding door, and it found it to be 53 degrees compared to the 71 degrees on the main floor.
As I was going to be working in the basement, I moved the sleeping back to the basement door. It did manage to bring the temperature by the door up to about 60 degrees.
I think about those families living in the Dakota territory in the wintertime back in the 1800s. No insulation, furnaces, parkas or Ugg boots to keep warm. Just wood-burning stoves and scratchy wool blankets. I have the utmost respect for folks who could survive winters like 1880-1881, with seven long months of blizzards and unending snow. I am a wimp…
