Winter Prep

It has been getting colder at night and we've all be preparing for the long winter. Wool socks have been washed:

Corrie and Sugar Pie are practicing snuggling for body warmth:

And squirrels are stashing walnuts in our woodshed:

In trees:

And on fence posts:

Totally secure. This must be a very trusting squirrel.

All the mundane updates

In news that shocked the world (or 5 people), I recently deleted my Facebook account. I realize that this leaves a giant void for all the people in the world (5) who have a keen interest on the mundanity of my days.

As such, I bring you an update of all the things that have happened since I left Facebook one full day ago.

This morning was garbage day.
This evening for dinner we ate garden potatoes for the first time this year.

Whilst we were eating, an autumn leaf fell from a honey locust on to Sugar Pie's fuzzy ear.

Bernie slept through it all as cats are wont to do.

Bill has gotten to this point in his oven building.

I have gotten to this point in my hat and glove building.

(Also, since leaving FB, I have turned into a hard core rocker chick. Hard. Core.)

We received another delivery of wood.

I know, it looks like the last delivery, but I assure you it is not. See the wood in the shed? We stacked that. Also, please note our propane tank has been downgraded from 1000 gallons to 300 something. We use significantly less propane than the previous owners and the huge tank was unnecessary. Wood is the heating source of champions!

Finally, the turkeys want you to know that their tails are growing in for the season and they don't look nearly as silly as they did over the summer.

They want you to know they are handsome again. Image is very important to turkeys.

Very handsome turkeys.

More and less

It's currently the very specific time of year which results in many conversations between Bill and me regarding wood supply. It's been wicked cold this week and our stacked wood is dwindling. Every individual log that goes into a fire initiates an estimate from Bill on how much wood we have left and if it will get us to spring.

We have this much left in the wood shed:

(can you see the tiny pile in the back? It's about 4 pieces)

And this much on the porch:


Current guess is that we'll be ok until March, but we will have to dig into the pile of unstacked wood which is under snow, but covered by a tarp.


While we have used much more wood this year, we haven't used any noticeable amount of propane. In fact, the batteries in our thermostat were dead for 2-3 weeks around Christmas break, meaning the furnace wasn't on at all, and we didn't even notice. It is possible the propane company may come take our tank from us, as they expect us to use at least 500 gallons per year.

(the tank just looks lonely and disused, doesn't it?)

Between last year and this year, I think we've used a total of 200 gallons. Far less than the 7-800 the first year we lived here. And - with two wood stoves and a proper amount of wood, we are much warmer than when we burned propane.

As an added bonus of using more wood and less propane - I love stacking wood...and boiling water for tea and hot chocolate on the stove...and even lugging carts of wood from the shed to the house through the snow. I love putting on my blue hat (knit from yarn I spun and dyed!), boots and gloves and venturing out into the cold - especially when the sky is blue and the ground is white. The cold is refreshing and I appreciate the warmth of the house even more when I come back in.

What's that? You haven't seen my blue hat yet? Well...here it is:



It was made with my first knitable handspun. I've spun more since then - it is more even and less bumpy, which is very exciting.

(new yarn- shows improvement!)

(bumpy "yarn" from my first attempts)

I believe I've now earned the chance to spin with colored roving. Bill helped me dye a pound of it yesterday. Both of these are dyed with the same 3 colors, but different distribution. On this one, I just plopped the green, brown and yellow all over randomly.


On this one, I kept the colors mostly segregated:

I'm interested to see how they spin up! More color, less white!

Man, are we getting some snow!

I don't know if anyone out there can relate to the amount of snow we are going to get this weekend. It. Will. Be. In. Sane. They are predicting, like, 2 inches. Crazy right? Anyone out there know what we're going through?

How cute is my dog in the snow?

This is what our woodpile now looks like on the porch. Sad. We've been staying pretty warm though. As long as the temperature doesn't get below 25 we are nearly toasty. Below 25 it gets a little iffy.

Fortunately we still have lots of wood in the shed. Though, I can't just stroll out the living room door and grab it. Now, wood collecting is more of an adventure.

One man's trash...

Yeah, its trash to us too.

This week is our dumpster vacation!!! Are you so jealous??


Most of this came from our poor woodshed which was chock full of garbage. We hoped to find some hobo treasure in the back as we were told by an unreliable source that our property held a soup kitchen during the depression. We think the woodshed was the likely distribution center due to the lunch-counter-like window near the collapsed stove.


Can you see it on the left?


We also threw out this carpet (the first of three for the week!) and an old mattress, or as we like to call it: the jungle gym of tetanus.