We had an insanely powerful blizzard here in the Northern Plains that began on Sunday evening and lasted through Monday night. During the middle of it, my furnace stopped and I realized I was out of fuel oil. That is a terrible feeling, being in the middle of nowhere during a treacherous blizzard as the indoor temperature slowly drops.

I didn't cut much wood this fall mostly because I never found the time. Fortunately, however, I did cut enough for an emergency stash, which, in the end, saved me a lot of hassle and money avoiding a frozen house and busted water pipes. The house is old and drafty, not insulated very well, so without a heat source the temperature drops quickly-especially in subzero temperatures and wind chills that can easily, and indiscriminately, kill man and beast.

When it came time to clear the driveway after the 40-plus mile an hour winds subsided at 9pm Monday night, I stared down the driveway with the light from my John Deere tractor and it looked as if I were looking over a mountain range, each snow drift larger than the one before it, until it peaked at more than 10 feet tall.

The long-standing rumor is that my house is haunted, but now I know it is not the house that is haunted-it is the driveway. My imagination went wild with what kind of acts might have been perpetrated in this driveway throughout the farm's 100-year history to cause such hauntings … then I snapped back into reality and spent hours digging myself out, stoking the fire and waiting for the light of day to receive an emergency fuel delivery.

While this has little to do with biodiesel-except for the fact that, while I prefer a Bioheat blend, the recent unexplained phenomenon in Minnesota with No. 1 biodiesel blends has temporarily precluded this, and in this harsh weather no one recommends using No. 2 fuel or even a 50/50 mix-I can say this: I am looking forward to heading south to warmer weather for the National Biodiesel Conference in Grapevine, Texas, in a couple of weeks.