![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/BurningtheCandle_10121.jpg\" "\\"BurningtheCandle_1012\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe package said each candle was good for 5 hours and 30 minutes. I set the oven timer for 2 hours and 45 minutes. When I came back …<\/p>\n
… sure enough. They were telling the truth. Half the candle remained.<\/p>\n I don’t recall seeing emergency candles at DT before, but this time there was a front-and-center display. Maybe a seasonal thing. But a heck of a deal.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n Maybe it’s just the season, but I’m feeling more than the usual urge to stock up this fall. One of the local stores is having a two-day bulk meat sale and I bought things like a 12-pound pack of pork chops.<\/p>\n I know that for you folks with a passel of kids, that’s about a meal. For me, it’s a year’s supply of pork, and something I’ve never done before. I also grabbed a few more items on the case-lot canned goods sale.<\/p>\n Whatever it is, something makes me more apprehensive than usual about the coming winter. Not a shiver about the weather. But a shiver about life and unfolding events in the big, crazy world.<\/p>\n I keep thinking of the old poem<\/a>:<\/p>\n I’ve grown weary and cynical, waiting for America’s bright, fiat-money light to burn out. I was a kid when people first started predicting the dollar’s fall. I shrug at the latest dire warning.<\/p>\n Still, the bright glow of a fiat money economy “will not last the night.” I don’t know<\/i> what’s going to happen any more than the latest dire predictors<\/a> do. But it just feels as though this winter could be the time when we’re plunged into the dark. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few weeks ago A.G. told me the Dollar Tree had emergency candles, six for a buck. He noted, though, that a certain survival guru warned that some companies misrepresent the burn times on their candles. And, “He’s the type who would actually time such a thing.” I’m not usually the type who would. But what the heck. I bought a packet and set a candle on fire. The package said each candle was good for 5 hours and 30 minutes. I set the oven timer for 2 hours and 45 minutes. When I came back … … sure enough.…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/BurnedCandle_1012.jpg\" "\\"BurnedCandle_1012\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBut ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –
\nIt gives a lovely light.<\/i><\/center><\/p><\/blockquote>\n