A New Life

Life with power how amazing you are!  I have been able to run the dishwasher, clothes washer on sunny days during the week, and watch tv at night with the outdoor stove on and power to spare!  This must be how most people live...  I can even watch some tv at night on cloudy days.  Amazing!

First though, I needed heat.  I called the stove guy and he said the motor of the pump on the wood boiler has probably gone bad and it needs to be replaced.  I reminded him that I had a couple spare pumps since I replaced two with a larger pump.  Then I remembered that I also had a spare rotor, for which pump I had no idea, but it was worth a try.  Replacing the rotor worked and now I have a working pump which will equal a warm house.  

I waited as long as I could, but when the inside house temperature was hovering around 58 degrees, I thought it was time to turn on the furnace.  The official start date this year was November 6, 2013.  My goal is always to make it until December 1st, but not this year. 

So far the wood pile appears to be holding its own.  I still have a few blocks of cherry to split from last year yet.  I have spent a weekend on clearing out a fenceline.  My dad's neighbor wants to bulldoze the trees in the fenceline, however this is where I've been getting my wood for the last couple of years.  I only had a couple of weekends to get the trees cut down (definitely not my specialty), clean up the logs and get them out of there.  I did call in help to cut the trees down, but otherwise most of the work I did on my own, and I was so glad when Monday morning rolled around and I could go back to my real job because my body needed a break!  Anyway, I haven't counted the trees I pulled out, over 20, but I do have about three left on the ground that I couldn't get out of there.  Now, I come to find out that the job probably won't get done until spring!  It would have been more enjoyable to do that work more leisurely than trying to accomplish it all in a few short days.  I have the rest of the winter to cut up those logs and move them to my woodpile for next years wood.

With the heat on, much more power, the winter seems easy to conquer...but there's always something.  Tonite we are receiving our first legitimate traffic slowing snow storm.  The panic begins...will I be able to make it out of my driveway in the morning?  Unfortunately, the man with the blade is not sure he can even get in his tractor.  He fractured a vertebrae a few weeks ago and is in a backbrace and on pain killers.  He never offered his truck (the old one of course), so I will have to wait until morning to see what Mother Nature has surprised me