Still in the No Match club !

Nov 4 and 80* + on my back south facing deck looks like I might get another 2 weeks before first fire , fine with me save us all a few shekels! Been over 10 years since I had more than a full ton of coal stocked . And I have a 2ftx3’ x7foot high stack of split lumber and another 2x3x6” of molding and cabinet material scrap bundled into 2.5-5# logs .this may be the first year I haven’t had at least one fire before Halloween

Sounds like you've got a bit of wood there to help prolong the coal start up. I lit my hand fired stove on 10/30. That worked out well for some days with light frosts at night. I had to let it die yesterday as we're in about a 4 or 5 day warm spell. 77 degrees today. Great for motorcycling but more than windowstats can deal with on multiple days. That's only the second time I shut down in about 15 years with handfireds. Otherwise, in the one match club from Oct. to Apr. I do hate restarting a stove a second time. With handfireds, I've started anywhere from Oct. 10 to Nov 10 and run to early to mid April. Usually out of coal by then. Last heating season that was about 4.2 tons.

The Farmer's Almanac and the Old Farmer's Almanac both call for a bad winter in the NE and Midwest. The Nat. Weather Service says otherwise.

I heard it's a La Nina winter in Pa. which is warmer than normal. Hope so. The older I get the less I like winter.

3rd la Nina in a row. Supposedly rare.