Brrrr!...Ahhh!

This has been quite a week. I mentioned in an earlier post problems with creosote build-up in our wood stove flue. Well, it got bad enough that I felt that it was no longer safe to run the stove. So I shut it down. I did not want to fill the house with carbon monoxide and other toxic gases. The downstairs got pretty cold as a result, but we had both electric heat and the propane fireplace insert  upstairs. But then the thermostat stopped working on the propane stove - I couldn't turn on the stove! Heating the living-room electrically is really expensive. So we survived much of the week with electric heat on in just the bedroom. We'd come out to do other things - like cooking - into a cold house; 50 degrees or even the 40's. Brrrr!   But today that all changed. The Chimney Doctor came and cleaned out the flue. It was as I thought - a build-up of creosote up at the top of the flue. Ian, the Chimney Doctor, has a gizmo he can run up from inside that rotates a bunch of metal flails that beat up the creosote. But it wasn't good enough to clean out the top where there is a cap that prevents rain from coming down the flue. That was clogged and the creosote was like cement. So he had to go up on to the roof and beat it out with a hammer. But now it is great. I built a good hot fire and the stove is working beautifully. I also took the thermostat to Friends of the Sun, where we got the propane stove, and got a new one, and it works. So we are totally back in business heat-wise. Ahhh! Good thing too - it's supposed to get down into the single digits tonight - maybe even below 0 degrees.

The Chimney Doctor has arrived!

Ian with his gizmo

A nice fire!

Last night we went to the first session in the new Concert Choir season, which includes music by J.S. Bach (the motet Jesu Meine Freude), and Herbert Howells (Requiem), and two others. I think it will be a fine concert, which will be at the end of April.

Monday was the final session in the OSHER series on art. We looked at work by Joseph Diggs (who is based in Falmouth, MA on Cape Cod), Emily Mason (who recently died, but had summered for years in Brattleboro), Roger Sandes (who is also local and whom I used to work with on the board of the Brattleboro Music Center) and especially Kara Walker, and her phenomenal work Sugar Baby at the old Domino Sugar factory in Brooklyn - you can see a video all about it on YouTube. We watched the video. It is literally unbelievable. This was a really fascinating course and left us wanting more. So we can be more regular visitors at our own Brattleboro Art Museum, where Mara Williams is director and does teaching tours, and which is housed in the old train station.

A work by Roger Sandes

Kara Walker's sphinx-like Sugar Baby -made entirely from sugar. It, and the abandoned sugar factory in which it was created, have since been demolished. All part of the plan. Watch the video!

Tomorrow night I have a choir rehearsal with the Dummerston Choir. We are doing an arrangement of the hymn Children of the Heavenly Father which I did for the Guilford Choir about 30 years ago. I am eager to hear it again.