It was 114F degrees outdoors. Not to worry, right? What’s noticeable is the hum of the house. There is little noise outside though I can hear the ever present doves.
No school buses. Few cars. No street conversations.
The silence is broken by the house fans, appliances, and the ever present hum of the air conditioners. It makes me mindful of the power, our dependency on electricity. What if there is a brown out? IID, bless them, keeps reminding me to conserve energy with their daily Conserve Alerts.
Set the thermostat to 78 degrees or higher. The new thermostat installed by the IID weatherization contractor even has a little green leaf beside the temperature setting when it is at 77 degrees or higher. Avoid using major appliances between 4 and 9 pm.
Why so late? I’d like to do my sweaty laundry when the sun goes down. It’s old fashioned, but we still hang our laundry on a clothes line. Clothes dryers do not use a lot of power, electricity or gas, but we’ve gotten into the clothesline habit.
It does save some electricity. We have lost power in the past in the summer though I think all utilities are now better prepared. Given our sizzling summer trends, we hope they are better equipped for summer extremes.
But what is your response if the power fails? You hold your breath. Maybe if I sit still, the heat won’t get in, or at least I won’t notice it. Robert Frost wrote of the fog creeping in on “little cat feet.
” Here, the heat slides in like a rattlesnake. Quietly.