Creature Comforts and Technology

Been a crazy week on the home front. Here’s what happened, but not in any particular order.

We have a hate/hate relationship with our heating oil company. Originally they filled our tank and put us on a ‘budget plan’ so that our monthly bill was $310. After the winter season, we didn’t use an entire tank of fuel, but they topped us off in April. We are very fuel and water efficient individuals.

They continued to charge us $310 a month, making serious bank on our billing. We paid for the initial delivery and then some. After the summer we had paid for the fuel AND had $1400 in credit. He got the budget plan reduced to $210 a month.

The credit continued to grow. The next season they topped us off again, but we barely needed any fuel. The credit amount was nearly $2000. He got them to stop billing us and let the credit ride.

This week he called the company to inquire as to the going rate for fuel. It was $4.00 a gallon. Diesel fuel is now $3.79 a gallon. I know they have to deliver, but they also don’t pay ‘road tax.’ They have to hire CDL with dangerous load credentials, but they get a volume discount.

He called a local competitor that was beating their delivery price by .19 cents. Our address was logged incorrectly and he said they didn’t deliver out as far as we are. Really? We are only 2.5 miles from your office. Why can’t you come that far? Where is your house? It was hysterical, really, because he had us located about 17 miles away. Our road name is similar to several others in the state, being ‘old’ roads that led to an important destination, back in the day. We received the documents the very next day.

The day after that the fuel company delivered oil at the $4.00 rate. We have enough ‘credit’ on the account to cover it, and receive over $500 back, but the woman in their office knew we were shopping around for prices, and to say the least, he is LIVID.

We have a clock in our bedroom that projects the time onto the wall. We love this feature because we get up in the dark every morning most days of the year. That is life on a farm. If we didn’t have jobs, we could do things differently, but some things need doing before we get ready for work, which makes that an early morning. This week that clock turned on us – twice.

I don’t know what happened to this clock, but the alarm went off at 12:00 MIDNIGHT. Two different nights, not in a row. Don’t use this clock for the alarm feature, so can’t explain why it was set, and for midnight! I ended up unplugging it because apparently I only hit the ‘snooze’ and it went off again nine minutes later.

We have a great microwave. It has so many features, plus it has a stove hood fan built into the bottom. It is large and versatile. It goes with the stove as a unit and we really love it, but not this week.

Returning to the house from barn chores, I discover the microwave running, and it is heating up NOTHING. He’s in the shower. I ask him why he turned on the microwave and he said he hasn’t been in kitchen.

I try hitting ‘clear’ and it resets to 6:00 minutes, over and over. It’s beeping, with a scrolling message that says “SERVICE REQUIRED.” He unplugs it, plugs it back in. It starts all over, continuing the out-of-control beeping and resetting back to 6:00 minutes. He unplugs it and we leave for the day.

When we return, 9 hours later, he plugs it back in and it is fine. I make dinner, using the microwave like I do nearly every single meal, and it runs fine.

We’ve been experiencing issues with our exterior lights. The light he installed on the back of the house continues to turn itself off whenever it feels like it, and then comes back on, when it feels like it. It is supposed to be ‘dusk-to-dawn.’

He tries to find a replacement bulb at the BigBoxStore. Only carry the same bulb as what is already installed. He goes on the internet to find a better bulb, delivered this week. He re-lamps the lights and it is a like daylight out there. A slightly warmer light, but reaches way down the hill. If we had had these originally, I could have seen the fox straight away, instead of guessing what it was.

Speaking of which, haven’t seen either fox in a couple weeks. Maybe they’ve moved on.