It’s one thing to “know” that the temperature & weather swings are more extreme in the desert – it’s quite another to live here for a while and feel it. While the summer was fairly mild (I think we only had a handful of days that got into triple digits instead of dozens and dozens), now it’s autumn and we’re getting that large and unusually cold storm moving in. The high temperature today was only 58ºF today, and as we speak it’s only 48ºF outside. Tomorrow’s high is only supposed to be about 51ºF, with an inch or more of rain.
In anticipation of there being a lot of cold, wet, miserable, and hungry birds tomorrow, I made sure that all of the feeders were topped off tonight, just as the front of the storm and the first rain started.
The Forever Home does as good of a job staying warm in the chill as it does staying chill in the heat. It’s nippy, but we haven’t had to turn on the heat yet. Which got me to thinking – where’s the furnace? I know that the two thermostats have “heat” settings as well as “cool” settings, and I know that there are two A/C units outside. Are those heat pumps? Are there furnace units built into the A/C units? Are there furnace units on the roof or in the attic? I know what the furnace looks like and where it was located in a closet-like enclosure in our last two houses, but I haven’t seen anything at all like that here.
New home ownership! It’s an adventure! I guess when the time comes I’ll switch the thermostat on and see if hot air comes out of the vents. Assuming it will, I can listen for new sounds to see if I can identify the source.
