Hunkering down in our Bat house

A 'whatever' board made from scraps
left over from other projects

It's a cold day in Wisconsin. The roads and bike paths are covered with snow so I can't ride to coffee (I won't ride to coffee).  So I stay home and hunker down. There is time now to read - I need to take another run at "The Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawking.  And there is time to work on a little software project I've been putting off - a 'Useless Machine'. I have turned some 'kindling' into something else - another thing I have been putting off.

As I peak out the back door to snatch another couple chunks of wood out of the woodbox, I see the needle on the thermometer hasn't moved from it's guard post around the number '0' (It's been faithfully stationed there for the past couple weeks). I have to be careful not to let the screen door slam shut since the shock absorber (closer) doesn't work below 10 degrees (F).  I add the chunks to the glowing coals that coat the bottom of the firebox and adjust the draft to give the new wood some air. This stove is located in the rear of our house and a fan sits next to it blows air past the wall behind the stove and out into the rest of the house.

When I walk from the family room - where the stove sits - to the front room, the temperature drops from the mid 80's to the high 60's and I think about how bats behave in bat houses (or attics). They control their temperature -- and/or the comfort of their babies -- by moving (them) between the hot sunny side of their 'house' to the cool shady side - and points between. Our house is a bat house and we have learned to move about like bats. I like bats.