Cold, Snow and Heat

We finally got some snow here, just about an inch of light, fluffy stuff. And it got cold, too, with lows around -1o Celsius (about 12 degrees F). So now it officially feels like winter.
Most people here heat with natural gas that is piped in from Russia. The pipes run through Ukraine and that is causing a lot of news now. Ukraine is in a dispute with their natural gas supplier in Russia. Ukraine claims that they paid their bill but the Russian company says they still owe late fees and so has cut off the supply of gas to Ukraine. That was not supposed to affect the European countries that receive their gas from the same pipeline, but many countries including Poland, Romania and Hungary have had their gas flow reduced by up to 30 percent. (Hungary's gas flow has been reduced by 20 percent.) So, the Russians claim that Ukraine is siphoning off gas, causing the supply to fall. Thankfully, there are gas reserves and other gas suppliers available to the European countries so the heat is still on. And we thought our neighbors were kidding when they said there is firewood stored in the basement in case the Russians cut off our gas!