Only the fourth?

[altivo]

November is going to be long. This post will not be.

Cold weather continues. One of the five heated buckets installed yesterday proved to have failed. It had ice on top. That one was two seasons old. Our experience has been that after two winters they start failing in the third cold season. The darned things are not built to be repairable either. Thermostat and heating element are enclosed and sealed so you can't even see them, much less replace them.

So I drove up to Harvard's Tractor Supply to get a replacement. At $45, their brand is not cheap. But they are more heavy and durable.

SiriusXM sent me a complicated message about how they are reshuffling a bunch of channel numbers. Many of those channels are among the ones I programmed into the presets of my car radio. Redoing that is cumbersome and would not be fast or fun. So I was pleased when I turned the ignition key and the radio display lit up with "Reconfiguring SiriusXM. Please wait." It took about two minutes, and all the preset numbers on the dash still had the same station content as before, but the channel numbers on the display were different. Slick job, Sirius. Thanks.

One good thing about the colder weather: I will be wearing mittens to do chores. My hands were getting hard calluses from carrying water buckets.

Comments

[songdogmi.wordpress.com]

SiriusXM reconfiguring your presets for you - that's pretty nifty. Very cool.

I'm beginning to need mittens while I'm sitting at the computer. That could complicate things, but I don't really want to turn the heat up in the house.

[altivo]

Try a pair of fingerless gloves? The kind that cover your palm and up to the first knuckle work well for typing, I find.

Other solutions: home heating cats of the lap sitting kind if you don't mind the purring; an under the desk space heater; a fuzzy lap afghan; insulated or self heating cup for the hot beverage of your choice helps too.

Our woodstove is at one end of the house, my office at the other in one of those long, low ranch house designs from the 70s. Years ago I took my laptop to the living room at the end of the sofa nearest the stove. It has never gone back to the desk. The living room has better window viewing of the birds and horses, plus being closer to the coffee pot in the kitchen. 🐶

[ranunculus]

My office is now in the dining room, near the wood stove in the living room and right next to the kitchen...

I find disposable culture very distressing. Hope your new buckets last more than 2 years.

[altivo]

Well, two of the new brand started this second season with flying colors, no problems yet. The construction is certainly better, and these hold 6 gallons instead of 5. One of my horses is hard on buckets, as in he likes to play with them and kick them around when empty. He broke a good hard plastic bucket just a month or so back.