Black Spruce male buds

I heard a faint alarm this morning while I was brushing my teeth. Sounded like the tornado warning siren in town but upon searching the house, found it was coming from the furnace. Since it was 4 a.m. there wasn't much I could do so I turned off the heat (the alarm continued) and went to work. I called an electrician when I got home. My furnace is an electric boiler and I had the specs that came w/ it ready for the electrician when he came. Good thing too, electric boilers are rarely used around here. He finally figured out a coupling had come loose and the alarm stopped (thankfully!). I figure there must be some kind of axiom that if something is going to go wrong, it will do it in the middle of the night.