Gotta give the weather points for irony. Or perversity. Or something.

After snowing most of the day, right around 4:30 in the afternoon yesterday the clouds parted like somebody opened a curtain. It was uncanny. Right before sundown, of course: Not enough to do the solar panels any good but enough to slightly melt the snow so that this morning it was frozen to them like concrete. Had to wait till it softened before I could clean them off. But after that, power! Beautiful power.

The removal of the clouds also caused the temperature to fall like somebody hit it with an ax. It was 14 degrees by 7:30, and twelve hours later it was 1 degree. The Lair handled this well ... if you consider that I built it. Absolutely certain I've got to insulate under the floor, which got kind of cold. But still, on the ground floor it was 38 degrees when I crawled out from under the blankets, considerably warmer in the loft. Took a LONG time to get it up to 60, but again the loft was much warmer much quicker. I've already gotten into the habit of reading up there most mornings.