I guess it’s to be expected that I might have a few more colds this winter. I mean, sure, I see a lot less people on any given day than I used to, but I’m being exposed to a whole different family of pathogens in my new environment. It will take a little time for my immune system to start to recognize and kill these invaders without causing me to fall into a nearly two week state of ill functioning. I never had a fever, but I felt intensely cruddy. A little throat soreness, coughing, headache, and, just to make it interesting, diarrhea.
I figured the symptoms might be indicative of Covid, but I’d gotten the vaccine sufficiently before that illness that if it was Covid, then I was experiencing the vaccine-version. That was plenty bad, no way I’d want it straight.
We’ve had a few frosty mornings so far, but this week is looking to be a veritable heat wave, with highs in the 50s. I actually had a pretty comfortable time working in the yard on Sunday with temps in the 50s, so I do think it’s a bit of heat wave. I’m glad for it, because I have to travel to Boise this week for work.
I am not looking forward to a snowy drive into Boise, but it’s probably going to happen for the January meeting that I’ll be attending. Unless, of course, I end up snowed in… I might end up leaving earlier if there’s snow on the roads, to avoid the coldest temperatures, but I’ll just have to play it by ear this year. I have no experience in how much snow we’re going to get up here. Not yet!
I’m looking forward to my first winter in my new home. We’re already finding things that we need to do to keep our house in a good state, like keeping the fans on during the day to help move moisture around the house. In the summer, I’d been opening the bathroom window to vent moisture, but now we’re using a space heater along with the bathroom fan for that. Sure, I could open the window with the temps being in the 50s, but it is harder for our heating system to heat that cold room back up than to just keep it warm. And the heater helps a lot with moisture reduction.
Over the summer, Ambrose (with a bit of my help) spent a lot of time insulating the pump house, which needs to stay above freezing if we would like to have water during the winter. When we arrived, it was a small room with two windows, and a little bit of board insulation on the walls. Now, it’s a much smaller room, with the windows covered up and layers of insulation lining walls and ceiling. I actually think that my office is warmer because of the additional insulation on the pump house since they share a wall.
We’ve got snow shovels, and the neighbors have ATVs with plow attachments. They’ll likely take care of the road, so that they can get out, and we’ll just need to handle our driveway. Ambrose heard that they’re betting in town when our Harbor Freight garage is going to take flight and get blown off its moorings. We’ll definitely need to police the amount of snow that collects on top of the garage, but I think we’ve got it pinned down pretty good by this point. The summer did give us some extreme winds to teach us that the attachments the garage came with were insufficient for our area.
At this point, I’m kind of hoping that the snow holds off until after my choir season ends with our big concert on December 3rd (3 pm, Cambridge Exhibit Hall, there will be cookies and an amazing show!). Or at least until the last time I need to travel out of Cambridge for things…. let it not snow until after the Thanksgiving break…