Winter is a blast...literally! Snow, wind, freezing temperatures...but warmth inside our house. Wikipedia defines winter as: "...caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun." Well, I think the axis has been even further tilted from the Sun because of the weight of the snow - averaging a total of 3-4 feet to date, and knowing New England - there's still more to come.

One of the great inventions of our time is the snow blower - without it, no access to the front door and the backup propane tanks until Spring! I'm not sure it's just a Maine thing, but several years ago my neighbor said he didn't need his snow blower any more and wondered if I wanted it. Not wanting to insult his generosity, I immediately said, "yes." As you can see the pathway is a bit crooked but not bad for an amateur.

Our photovoltaic panels continue to crank out electricity. February's output was 286 kWhrs. That's lower that our normal February generation (usually around 350 kWhrs) due primarily to the parade of snow storms that kept the sun from shinning. But when it's out, it's powerful. Today, for example, we generated 21.5 kWhrs!

Note the inside temperature today  - a high of 77.4. That's due primarily to the passive solar gain of our home. The sun shone from sunrise (0 degrees) to sunset (28 degrees) which caused the solar tanks in the basement to heat up to 148 degrees - ample 'fuel' for any overnight heat we might need. That's called a renewable resource!