Is this year off to a good start? Not really...

What have I accomplished so far in this new year? Not much. It's been too freakin' cold to do more than take the dog outside a few times a day and feed the woodstove. I've worked on a manuscript and I've made a few videos. I'm not sure that's enough, but then again, I did say that I would REST during the month of January. 

It's harder than I thought. 

Today, finally, we were gifted with honest-to-goodness sunshine! Around two o'clock, Deuce and I walked down to the lower stone fence to get a good look at a widow maker. That's slang for when the top of a tree snaps off and then hangs up there instead of falling. There is no way we can safely get that to the ground. All we can do is stay alert when in the vicinity and wait for it to fall. Once it's on the ground, we can harvest the tree trunk. 

Thanks to the cold weather, my computer is living in my living room. I'm not too fond of this arrangement. I miss my sunroom office, but it's just too cold out there this year. It did help me decide to order a new laptop, though. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow unless I screwed up the acceptance thingee on the stupid app I did not want to sign up for. As soon as it arrives, I'm dumping that crap and everything associated with it. 

I know we're only three weeks into the new year, but I'm not impressed. I don't know what I'd hoped for, but I know it's not this dull, boring stretch of days. I have just one question: Is it spring yet?

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, winter weather, new year, laptops, widow maker, videos, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life

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

Four to eight inches - sounds risque but it's not

 

We went to bed last night with a fair amount of dread hanging over us. The weather forecast was for up to eight inches of snow. I anticipated a morning spent on the John Deere 1023 pushing snow. I should have known better. Once again, the weather guessers missed the mark. 

Yes, it did indeed snow. I put the total at 2.5 inches. That puts our February 2024 total-to-date at 10.5 inches. Not bad for us in our little micro-climate, in fact, it's typical of the snows we get. Historically we get a lot of these little snows in January and February. 

I'm happy not to need to hop on the tractor and push snow in the cold. I did go out (in my slippers) and take a measurement and a few pictures, though. We don't need to go anywhere today, and if I did decide to make a fast trip to the grocery, the Colorado is a 4x4. No problem. 

The snow covering the trees is lovely in the morning light. I've created a page for the photos here. 

I'm not sure what this day will look like now. I'd planned to be outside for an hour or so, but that won't happen. I'll take Deuce for his morning stroll and come back inside. I can enjoy the snowy woods just as much from the comfort of my recliner. Some days, I like to act my age. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor/The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, snowfall, rural living, country lifestyle, winter weather, John Deere 1023, snow removal, Colorado 4x4, beautiful woods, snowy woods

Christmas Eve 2022

Merry Christmas to you and yours from The Hideaway!

Always expect the unexpected they say. This year, I spent Christmas Eve processing vegetable soup. Yep. That's not a typo. I now have fourteen jars of veggie soup in the pantry. 

It's not what I planned to do today, but the mercury struggled to hit 14F today. We've had cold snaps before, but generally not over Christmas. 

With the work done, I think we're going to settle down in our respective chairs and find a movie to watch. Going to Christmas Eve church service is out. No way should the Lord of the Manor be out in this cold. Period.  

It was a good day's work. Fourteen meals in the jar. Can't beat that for an early Christmas present. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, vegetable soup, Christmas Eve, home food preservation, winter weather

Staying warm with a negative wind chill

It's cold outside! The Weather Channel, or what the hell ever entity, has dubbed this massive storm/cold front/artic blast Winter Storm Elliott. The snow and the cold don't bother me too much. We live in the country and we prepare for such things. Wind gusts are another matter. We don't much like the wind even though it delivers firewood to the ground. 

Now is the time all the hard work my cousin and I did scant months ago will pay dividends. Cutting and splitting firewood was a job that seemed to go on forever. Just yesterday, I burned off the brush pile from this year's work, but I can't say the job is finished. It never really is. 

Having a woodstove and firewood stockpiled is a blessing, especially during these cold snaps. We watch the weather forecast and know from experience whether or not to get a fire burning. Our winters are a mixed bag, and typically we burn from mid-December to mid-March. When the temps are in the forties and above, the heat pump works fine. We just need to remain aware of what's happening outside. 

That type of awareness may seem like a lot of hassle to some people, but it's not. I grew up with it, and the Lord of the Manor developed it once he moved here twenty-eight years ago. He was of another mindset at first, but the winter of 1995-96 brought him around to my way of doing things. 

The country way. Long may it thrive!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, firewood, country living, rural lifestyle, woodstove, preparedness, winter weather, wind chill, a writer's life, cold fronts