Keeping a country girl warm

Rural living is not for the lazy. I know this because I live it. It would be much easier to watch television and play on the Internet all day than it is to go outside in fifty degree weather and split firewood for three or four hours. I'll take splitting firewood any day of the week over watching the vast wasteland.

There are a lot of trees here on the manor. Most of them are maple but there's a good smattering of oak, wild cherry, and poplar tossed in. I don't harvest healthy trees for firewood unless they've gotten tall enough to be a threat to the house or develop some other issue that will be a problem in the near future. In October of 2023, I had a professional come and take down a leaning maple. It was wood from that maple my cousin and I split and stacked yesterday. And we still have some to go, but he wants to haul that to his place and work at his leisure. 

The old adage is that firewood warms you three times. Once when you cut down the tree, twice when you split the wood, and thrice when you burn the firewood. My grandfather used to repeat that every year and it's true. Working firewood can make you sweat even in cold weather. 

I actually enjoy wood cutting season. I like working outside far more than cleaning house (I keep my house tidy enough, thank you). I like the aesthetics of a neatly stacked rank of firewood although I'll be tarping the ranks for the winter in the next few days. I already have enough firewood stacked just inside the basement door to last through January. Once what I have inside is burned, I'll only bring over enough for two or three weeks at a time so I don't have any wood inside over the warmer months. 

Yes, burning firewood is hard work, but it serves multiple purposes. It keeps dead trees from causing damage to my house, working firewood is good exercise, and burning firewood reduces my electric bill.  

I don't think there is any better heat than wood heat. Wood heat is a "hot" heat. No cool air swirls around the way it does with a furnace or heat pump. Wood heat is a constant heat without the continual cycles of cooling and warming you get with a heat pump. And if there is a storm and the power goes out?  Well, I won't freeze and neither will my water lines because the woodstove is impervious to power outages. 

I was born country, so using firewood to heat my house is not a foreign concept. It's all part of the self-reliance that is bred into "country folk." It's hard work, but people out here don't run from that. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, country lifestyle, rural living, hard work, power outages, water lines, winter weather, maple, oak, a writer's life, heat pumps

A dark ending to a great day

Yesterday, my cousin and I had a very successful yard sale. Many no longer needed items went to new homes and my cousin and I caught up with each other. It was a lot of work to pack up everything and haul it to my uncle's driveway, but the trip home was a lot lighter, ergo, easier. 

I had a great time with Linda, but I was happy to get home. The temps were in the upper 80sF, and there was barely a breeze. It was hot. I unloaded the pickup and then flopped on the bed for a quick rest. A line of thunderstorms was approaching so I didn't want to try to do anything outside. I didn't have time, so a flop-down was my best option. The wind ahead of the front was scary strong and I re-joined the Lord of the Manor to keep an eye on the blowing trees. At about 4:00 pm, we heard BOOM!! BOOMBOOMBOOM!!!

And the house went completely still. The electric power was out. I made the call to report the outage, and so did everyone else in our little enclave. We watched it rain and speculated how long it would take until the power was restored. Longer than we thought.

One of the cousins, being the curious sort, hopped into his truck and drove out to see if he could figure out where the BOOM! occurred and reported in to everyone else.

Just to the right of our bridge, the wind snapped the top out of a tree which fell across the power lines which snapped off the top of a pole that just happened to house a transformer. No wonder there was a big BOOM! 

The word from the power company was grim. We could expect power to be restored no later than 4 PM the next day. Well, crap. 

But country folk are generally prepared for these things. We went out and readied our old generator. I don't even remember what brand it is or the specs on it. All I know is it started and ran like the champ it is. And we heard the humming of other generators as other neighbors settled in for the siege and a few hours lived mostly in the dark.

Happily, the power was restored to us around 7:30 am, or thereabouts. The generator had done it jobs and kept the refrigerator and freezer running. We had water and Internet (sort of), and if it had rained to the point the sump pump was needed, we'd have power to it. 

It's the stormy time of the year. I think I'll leave the generator at the ready for a few more days, just in case. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, power outages, generators, rural living, country lifestyle, preparedness, a writer's life, family, storm damage, trees