First Published on 03/11/2015
This ought to be the last one. Snow and nasty cold should be on their way out. I’m sure a bunch of folks nearby have read temperatures below zero on their thermometers this winter, but first time I saw the “Big 0” was this morning.
Lots of folks think I’m nutty about time and temperature. I live by clocks controlled by the official government time signals out of Colorado. I waste time adjusting clocks and watches not signal sensitive to try to put them on the dot with official time. Some say I’m anal about correct time.
I remember writing about temperature not long ago. Think I enumerated all the thermometers, digital, analog, mercury and alcohol, I consult both here at Big House and at the Examiner in Moorefield.
We need an official government calibrator for thermometers. This business of having two digital thermometer sensors tacked up to a breezeway ceiling five feet apart reading three degrees different just is nonsense. When I want to know what the temperature is, I want to know what the temperature is.
Moorefield is more sensible than Capon Valley. My two Examiner digitals generally agree within a degree and they both get along fine with Summit Bank, North and Pendleton County Bank, South. The outlier is Grant County, Bank South which is always out in left field temperature wise.
The magic big round number appeared this morning (Saturday, March 7) on my Doghouse digital. Sensor/transmitter, tucked up under deck handrail, at least eight, maybe ten feet from the flowing edge of Moore’s Run generally reads a degree or three lower than thermometers around Big House. Receiver is tacked to end of a bookcase beside Pap’s old recliner, which serves as bed and general relaxation furniture. A pocket flashlight provides thermometer illumination nights when I wake for reasons other than temperature change.
Though I tend to forget weather once it’s past, I do seem to remember we had a spell comparable to this one last year. Latter part of winter stayed pretty cold, windy and snowy into middle March. I remember lying in Grant Memorial Hospital with blood clots during March Madness, watching three basketball games at once, one on my laptop computer and two on the room television. I’d pause to rest my eyes occasionally, look out the window and guess at how hard the wind was blowing and how fast snow was melting.
A fair number of weekend mornings, I see Tommy Rinard, who rents and farms my place, and comes to feed or just check things out. I’ll ask what the temperature was at his house across Capon River from Big House. Invariably, he’ll tell me it was three or four degrees colder than the average at my place. Maybe it gets colder further East you go or maybe we both just need our glasses changed.
Doghouse thermometer also reads indoor temperature. Indoor sensor is eight feet furth from the creek and enclosed by walls and ceiling away from window and sun. It usually reads a couple of degrees higher than the deck sensor, even after a long week without heat inside.
When I light off old parlor stove with cedar, split locust and round oak, I generally sit a few minutes to be sure fire is catching ok. When thermometer number begins to roll up, I get up, close the draft and damper and get on with life till time to add fuel. This morning, about 5:00, when I see that “0” I considered sitting back a while just to see if a minus one would appear. My stomach rang, Big House’s frying pan was calling. I said the heck with minus one and crunched snow crust to breezeway and back door where thermometers all read at least three degrees higher.
