Season-appropriate

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Fire notes

Cold out tonight, and snowing. Started fire with newspaper curls and a piece of fat wood and kindling. Put in three logs in the first 15 minutes. Cracked to door a couple of times to encourage it. Nicely built up now.


- iPhone uPdate

More fire notes

Easy start with newspaper, kindling, and a piece of fat wood. Two logs on top, and now just one more every half hour or longer. It took about 45 minutes for the fan to come on, but its hot the ceiling fan turning slowly.

It's 25 degrees outside. I turned the thermostat to 64, and its thermoset reads 68. My room was down to 58 so I turned its heater on. Thermometer in the kitchen reads 68. Of course the house was 70 when we started.


iPhone uPdate

Fire Notes

I fear that some if my recent purchase of firewood may be too big for my little fireplace.



If his I'd really the first time I've put a huge piece in the box. It's resting on two me goin pieces that are parallel to rack other snc I tried to create space for a draft.



Badly focused but you can see the size.

I've turned down the furnace, and the fireplace fan just kicked on. It's cold and getting colder out, and I'm snug on a Friday night.

- iPhone uPdate

Hunkering down in December

Got just a couple of things done this weekend, better than nothing. Most importantly, I got firewood delivered. Now I have enough to make it through a long stretch of no heat or power. I had a little fire yesterday, and that got me motivated to go to Craig's list. The guy I called was able to make a run in just a couple of hours. The wood was dumped in the driveway, and I hauled it around into the dogs yard. I bought a new firewood frame and finished stacking it this morning.

I got the worst part of the front corner cleaned up. I cut down all the tall weeds starting under the spruce tree and carried on to the point of the curve, where I got distracted. I cut back the winter jasmine as well. It wasn't a lot of work but it definitely makes a difference.

Posted with Blogsy

What are these things?

They look like bird food!

Right after I took this picture they wiggled a bit then disappeared underground. These grubs moving was even more gross than them just lying there in all their grubbiness.



- iPhone uPdate

What Has the Weather Been?

I thought it has been very wet.  It seems like a jungle out there. My gardening is all about pulling out the weeds, cutting back the shrubs.  On the boat, everything outside is covered with green mold.

But the statistics say its been dry:

It could be that the recent slope has been about equal to normal, but we were dry in May and June, and haven't made it up.

Note how the Big Rains have come later each year, but in 2007 they never came at all.