Mockingbird Hill Cottage

It’s never boring around here. Well, it can be, but not during the past 48 hours or so.

Since we were waiting for the oil delivery and the temperatures were frigid (that’s an understatement) we turned down the thermostat and wore layers of clothing, all to conserve the remaining oil we had. Our friends told us that the delivery would be in the afternoon but it might take longer than that because the country roads around here were in bad shape after the storm resulting in slow deliveries.

Then, at one point when Don was going to try to run an errand, his car slid off our driveway onto the lawn and got stuck. There we were, trying to dig out the car in the midst of wind chill warnings. I had on my flannel pajamas, a down jacket, a hat and gloves, and muck boots because I ran outside as soon as I realized he was stuck. It took us forever to get the car out of there and back on the driveway because every bit of snow is covered in ice. At the last minute, a good samaritan stopped by and helped Don push the car while I steered it. We were so grateful for his help.

Needless to say, at that point Don had lost the desire to run errands.

Back inside to wait for the oil. Along about 9 pm, it still hadn’t arrived, and I went into the kitchen to do the dishes. I smelled gas. When I tried to turn on the burners, it became clear that none of the pilot lights were working. We’d run out of propane. I turned to Don and said “What else can go wrong?”

(Note to all of you who have asked if we are on auto delivery. We are  on auto delivery – every two months – for propane. When we ran out, I looked for our last bill. I realized that they hadn’t delivered at the two month mark, which was January 9th, and were two weeks late. Now, add to this what happened to our neighbors yesterday. They love to ski and have a house up in the mountains, where they are on auto delivery for oil. They went there for the weekend and woke up yesterday morning to frozen and burst pipes because the oil company had missed a delivery. Auto delivery is a far cry from foolproof.)

So, the fact that our stove had run out of propane was not our fault, but you can bet I’m going to keep tabs on it from now on. I’ve already concocted a system to check on the oil and make sure the propane is delivered when promised. All of this happened right before the oil truck pulled in the driveway at 9:30, so the guys were able to make sure the propane was turned off and, even though I knew we hadn’t run out of oil, they checked the furnace as well. Our efforts to conserve the oil worked. We never ran out, though we were awfully close. The most important thing was keeping some level of heat going so our pipes wouldn’t freeze. And we did it. Plus, we ran a drip all day long.

Our oil/propane company said that they have been swamped. Those guys had been delivering all day yesterday and they still had five more stops to go after they were at our house. Propane is running behind as well. I do know that they have many more clients than they did when we first started working with them. They’ll have to figure all of that out. But they are true blue and have been there for us when our furnace died, when the sump pump stopped working, when we had problems with our old furnace – and many times Gino (the owner) didn’t charge us for coming to our house to check something out. He is as honest as the day is long.

Today we will be waiting on the propane, but we have an electric pot that we use to heat water for coffee, so we’re fine until dinner time.

Tomorrow, I head into the city to check in on Anastasia. It’s supposed to be much warmer tomorrow, with rain.

I’ll take it.

All is well.

Happy Tuesday.