More Snow!

Yesterday brought us our second blast of winter weather.  We picked up another six inches of snow, lifting the season total to 16 inches.  After such an unseasonable December, it's good to have some snow on the ground.  This time the wind came generally from the southwest and decorated my west-facing windows with large snowflakes.

Snow sticks to the living room windows during
yesterday's storm.

Meanwhile, I keep the wood stove up and running a good part of each day.  The stove does a respectable job heating the house.  In fact, I'm learning how to avoid overheating the ground floor, which is not difficult given how heavily the structure is insulated.  Heat moves nicely up the stairwell, and both floors tend to hold roughly the same temperature.

I have used up approximately one face cord of firewood thus far.  These softwoods burn quickly, so I go through the "working supply" on the front porch in about 4-5 days.  This morning I started shoveling my way to the main firewood supply, because it's time to restock the porch rack.

The main stock of firewood, adrift south of the house.

This is the wood I'm using now.  The large bin
in front will be about half-gone in another week or so.

The photos above don't show it, but I've already burned up (and then replaced) the wood between the trees on the right, as well as about half the wood stacked behind the front bin.

Happily, I've made arrangements with Richard, a neighbor on Kauffman, to handle snow removal.  He has a small but beefy John Deere tractor fitted with a large snow thrower.  Richard cleans out my driveway in about 15 minutes, and charges me $5 less "per push" than the guy who did it last year.  In addition, since he has only eight customers, he plows me out quickly, whereas last year I had to wait 1-2 days for the plowman to get around to me.

One year ago, January 18, 2011, Kyle and Dave were installing the interior trim, cutting wood in the "workshop" in the kitchen and then nailing it in place, e.g., in the upstairs hallway.