Just looked at the weather forecast .
I had seen the forecast and though, yeah, low should be fine for the fire overnight. Just tick over at the lowest level keeping the house warm. But this last fortnight had been much colder and we've had to have it ticking over at a warmer temp to keep the house even vaguely warm. One or two nights I've actually gotten up during the night and put more wood on the fire.
So checking the forecast just before bed had become the norm. In Canberra it's now 7.8°C and for me in my area it's forecast to be 4°C on the morning.
I've just checked our temperature gauge and laughed out loud. It's going to have to get warmer to be 4°C on the morning!
I've turned the fire up. If I wake during the night I'll add more wood if it needs it but if I leave it on low, I'll get up to a very cold house like this morning. Inside was only 12°C at one end (without the fire) and only 15°C in the room with the fire. I like it to be a minimum of 17°C in the sitting room that way the bedroom end will at least be 14°C... roughly. Some days I know it would be warmer sleeping in an unheated tent just from body warmth alone. I just can't manage half height tents for more than 1 night at a time at the moment. Probably never will again but I'll keep trying.
Still today was a little warmer than yesterday and I wasn't cursing anywhere near add much when I went out to lock the chooks up and found that the batteries on the automated for had failed. The cold has drained them really quickly, but they were not our normal Duracell batteries but EverReady Gold ones which clearly don't cope well with the cold. Won't use them again in a rush. Normally only change them every 6 months or so. This set have only been in since the end of March. If they had failed last night... I'd have really sulked. It was cold, wet, windy and downright miserable out last night. Tonight was a large almost full moon, rising against a beautiful earth shadow as the sun went down. It was still cold, but the wind was temporarily down from the gales of the weekend and there was no rain. It was beautiful for a few moments until my hands started to go numb...
Good morning all