The lights of the city

I am in Guelph until tomorrow morning then I will head back home. I thought I would share some thoughts with you on lights.
We have gotten so used to the gentle glow of candle lighting that anything else seems rather harsh. Took a trip into a store today in order to get wallpaper and the lights nearly blinded me . Wow no wonder the hydro bills are so high in these places..
Speaking of hydro bills, we got one the other day and it was $40 but the sad thing about the bill is they added $50 on top of that for delivery. If we could somehow eliminate our hydro entirely that would be wonderful indeed.
We cannot at least not for the time being. The furnace heats with wood but has an electric blower, I am not sure if it would wreck the furnace if that blower was unhooked . I am not about to take such a chance so I will have to keep paying for some hydro , but it irks me to no end to have to pay more for the delivery than what the actual product used costs. Oh well..
But back to lighting . We light our home exclusively with candles, and with the help of the occasional oil lamp. Our dining room has no fewer than 25 candles burning in the evening during suppers. It is gentle and warm and peaceful. People ask if we can see properly ..the answer is absolutely. Often after a meal we clear the table,pour tea and sit and read. Ken took the electric guts out of our chandelier in the dining room and turned it into a candle chandelier. There is plenty of light to do this.Our library is the same , we have 10-12 candles going at one time which gives us a fair amount of light , Certainly enough to see average print.
We dip our candles from a pot of wax that sits on our wood cook stove in the kitchen at all times. we add the stubs to this and any other wax we get our hands on . The pot is quite large and the colour changes according to what we add to the pot this week. But the colour mostly remains a reddish tinge.I think because most of the candles one finds at second hand shops were bought for the Christmas season. So when we buy candles they are generally red...most of them anyway.
Ken made some fantasting wooden squares in which we attach our lengths of wick. We then start dipping until we get the width of the candles measuring an inch to an inch and a half wide. We do at least a dozen at a time using this method. Then just hang the whole contraption to dry with the candles still attached
We have a couple of oil lamps and I use these for evening work that needs more light . When I am writing letters I need more light behind me so I light the oil lamp on the wall beside my desk. That and a few candles and I can actually see where I am dipping my pen and not dripping ink all over the paper.
 I am finding daylight is so very important,especially now when it is leaving so early in the evening ,It makes getting finer things done harder in the evenings or on cloudy days .So I don't waste it like I used to .
I have been asked by many people about how we are lighting our home and if we can see properly with just candle light...the answer is absolutely yes.
See you soon
M