It is snowing to beat the band. It started yesterday about 4:30 p.m. And continued through the night.



Last night about midnight I figured out the pilot light on the furnace wouldn’t stay lit – bad thermocouple. Fortunately I keep a spare around here, but I never found out what it takes to replace it. All I knew was that it is relatively easy, and plumbers hate to come up here to do it because it isn’t a big enough job for them to think it’s worth their while. Sort of a Catch 22 for me. The last time was in 2007 and the guy charge me about $100, but he was the owner of the company so if one of the guys had come, it would have cost more (one of them told me later).

So at 1 am I was lying on the furnace room floor trying to figure out how in the heck to get in there to work on it. I remembered the Ace Plumbing had the pipe things where the flames come out completely out of there, but I couldn’t get them to budge.

This morning I woke up to about 8 inches of snow and still coming down.



I called ProTech in Estes Park and they said they wouldn’t come if they couldn’t get down the driveway but were willing to try. I drove the truck back and forth up and down the driveway to tamp down the snow, and sat up at the top of the drive for about an hour waiting for them to come. Finally I gave up and came home to a phone message that he wasn’t coming. Meanwhile more snow is falling.



While waiting up by the highway I decided I could call Ace Plumbing and have the guy who came here before tell me how to take the furnace apart over the phone. I had visions of using my computer camera to capture what I was seeing, but the logistics of transmitting that weren’t clear. But when I called, he was out of range of phoning.

So I went back there and jiggled and messed until I got the thermocouple replaced. Now the furnace is working, and I’ve turned up the thermostats to get the house warmed up again. So of course I fell all empowered and like who needs a man, but you can bet I'm going to make Mr. Troutbend replace the thermocouple every summer from now on, whether it needs it or not.

The next worry is that the snow won’t pull down the power lines. Channel 7 says maybe 18 to 36 inches in our area. You can see them drooping over the river here. I was thinking we need some fishermen to come get their line hung up on the wires and shake the snow off. But it’ll probably be okay.