At 5 am it was 39 degrees outside and 59 inside. Under normal circumstances I would have turned up the thermostats last night and enjoyed the first hours of a long stretch of forced-hot water temperature comfort within my home. But the weather people all say the coming weekend will be a beautiful one, with Sunday reaching 80 degrees, so the household heat stayed off. Some people I know pick an arbitrary date, like November 1, and vow not to use artificial heat before then. I try to be more flexible although I’ve yet to crank up the boiler so far this fall other than to ensure that it still works. It looks like that boiler will have another week off before it transforms itself from a cobweb encased hunk of steel and iron into one of the most important components of our home.