Typical morning

First thing most mornings Steven and I sit by the woodstove and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate, our secret mix (we add in some French vanilla coffe mix too!). Whoever is up first stirs up the coals in the woodstove and gets a chunk of firewood from the woodbox on the porch and puts it in the stove. Sometimes we read for a while, or do Sudoku puzzles. Sometimes we just talk, maybe turn the light off in the gray light of dawn and watch it get brighter as the sun comes up. Occasionally the sky is lit up with amazing reds and then oranges or pinks at sunrise.

This morning it was pretty warm for a January morning. This thermometer is another memento of my Dad. It used to be attached to a post on my Dad's front porch. I miss my Dad so much, and these things that were his are a comfort to me.

When it's finally light enough, at that point where you can read a book without a light, the solar panels start charging our battery bank. We go out and sweep off the snow with a long-handled (thank you, whoever invented duct tape) broom. Today there was just a light dusting of snow, but it's worth the trouble. Even on a cloudy day we'll get enough charge to keep lights and laptop computers going.

Low-watt bulbs have come a long way since the first coily low-watt flourescent bulbs came out about 6 years ago. Plus they're a lot cheaper now too. In addition to having more choices in mumber of watts, shapes and clear vs. opaque bulbs, now there are also LED lightbulbs which are even lower in energy consumption and they don't have mercury in them like the flourescents. We have several of the LED bulbs now. Even if we were on the grid (regular electricity) I'd still take these conservation measurers. For one thing, they don't burn out like incandescent bulbs do. For another thing, every few dollars wasted on the electric bill is dollars that could have been spent on something fun!

The LED bulb in the picture is in a lamp over our kitchen table. It uses 1.5 watts and puts out a lot of light. We eat, play cards, read, sew, etc. at the table with this light. Our lamps in the living room have 1 Watt LED bulbs and give out adequate light.