Home on the Hill

Not that we were totally unprepared, but it sure got cold fast. Fortunately the winter garb was never far away.  It dropped from -5C (23F )to -21C (-5.8F) overnight a couple of nights ago and has stayed frozen since.  Which has given me a few opportunities to beef up the cold weather protection.  Job one this morning is to thaw out the Jeep which froze up on the side of highway 16 last night.  Poor or non existant anti-freeze, and as it turns out a crappy thermostat.  Anti-freeze fog in the distributer cap makes for no start. The snow came pretty much on schedule and it was time to do the first plow.  By the time I had done some commercial accounts and my neighbors and my driveway and yard Four hours had passed and the ginger anti-motion pills had worn off! Got out these "Thrum" mitts my Wife's Aunty knitted for me.  They're wonderful and I was glad to have them with me when the Jeep froze up and I waited a couple of h...

Always a great idea to take to the butcher shop: Lunch and something else you just might need! The fires are burning pretty steady now that the temperatures are hovering around freezing and below. Handy to have it just outside the basement door where we bring it in to split with an electric/hydraulic wood splitter.  Before you can say " Lickity Split" It's in split, piled and distributed to the three fires. Jo-Ann was trying for a new worlds record, and assured me this wasn't even close to her personal best. So far we are just burning wood in the house and green house.  In a week or so, after I do some chimney re-routing, I will be starting a night fire in the animal shed. I don't think the animals really need a lot of heat.  Just enough to stay dry.  But I sure find it handy when I am doing barn chores! Still have some more projects to do but most of them can be done indoors because the snow is creeping down the mountains and we even had a skim o...

I've spent the last seven days either cutting up meat or wiring houses.  Odd combination. Fortunately I was able to do one job at a time.  Now It feels wonderful to have a "day off" and catch up on some keyboarding and projects around the place. Cutting up my own meat has been  on my list for quite a while.  To have a cow cut and wrapped around here costs over three hundred bucks so it's quite a savings to be able to do my own.  I am fortunate in having a complete private butcher shop available an hours drive away.  So I can hang and process there in an efficient, comfortable setting. Before I took a two day course in beef cutting I took a course in knife sharpening - another handy skill that I have had a woe full need for.  After the beef course I took another one on wild game.  As it was hunting season there were only three students.  I presume the others were busy hunting.  With only three students and one instructor it was ...

Almost.  Still have to move a camper and truck out of a snow lane.  But close.  I have been re-wiring a house for brother Tom so a bit off schedule.  Not that I am ever "on schedule".  But it progresses.  This was the view from the green house a couple of days ago: Yes, that white stuff is the cold white stuff!  Past experience and a couple of light snow falls, coupled with predictions of a long cold snowy, el Nino, driven winter has added some impetus to the chores.  All the tools are put away.  Hoses coiled and stored in a heated basement - just in case of winter emergencies.  Fuel stocked up.  Chains checked and ready for mounting on the skid steer.  The gardens cleared and tilled.  Missing planting some Garlic. I went to a local Art Knapps, a plant store, a week ago to buy some garlic and a few cold hardy seeds and walked into this:   A whole two months before Christmas.  I just about freaked! ...

There was no trumpeting, just a low rumble.  About a cord of wood or more came spilling out of the space under the veranda.  We were counting on a row of wood placed two years ago to keep a pile of wooden roller bearings in place.  Bad counting.  First one side came down. We moved the errant wood out of the way and added a large pallet to act as a wall.  Moved the wood back.  Everything hunky dory.  Then the second bay came down. Enough.  Trying to do things the short cut way just leads to more work.  Next year we are building an extension to house the winters 16 cords of wood.  This year, with a hard frost on the morning ground, and snow possible at any time,  we will just make do with a bearing wall we can pile the wood up against and then every four feet or so use a cross brace piller to give the pile some strength. The lesson for me is to be aware of the voice that says: "hmmm - that doesn't look right.."  To stic...

It turns out the answer to that is 17 1/2 cords. Probably enough to see four fires through the winter.  Some of them don't take much wood.  Loading it and delivering it to the house is fast. It's the stacking that takes time. All the wood isn't going to fit under cover so some will just get stacked and covered with a tarp.  Next years Project list includes extending a shed roof under the veranda so it's all under cover.  A few brisk days with overnight temps approaching freezing  have added some impetus to the effort.  We have had snow on the mountains across the valley by this time.  It is not far away.  There is a certain sense of ease and comfort in knowing this winter's wood project is coming to an end.  Just in time because the electric furnace has been running, on and off, for quite some weeks now to take the morning chill off or warm up the evenings watch infront of the idiot box. Here's the result of trying ...

The sunshine holds, barring several hours lost for trips to Burns Lake for chain saw parts, the Winter Wood project continues. After a new bar and a couple of back up chains we were back up at the pond. Using the skidsteer to drag the logs out to a flat spot for limbing and then "chomping" the logs, moving them to a cutting area where they are held up at an easy cutting height has certainly increased the productivity of the process. One problem we didn't realize we would have is the cows, and their insatiable curiosity. We have to be extremely cautious when falling.  Some of the younger calves follow the logs as they are skidded out.  Jo-Ann is not only in charge of the skidding operation but shooing the cows away. Another couple of days or so and Winter warmth is ours.

Yesterday we started the Winter Wood Project.  Gathering the 14 or 15 cords of wood we will need to get us through the winter.  Last winter like others around here we ended up logging in the snow.  Not the most efficient way to get fire wood.  We have about 30 acres or more of dry, bug killed pine at the North end of the property.  Perfect firewood.  This year we have mechanized the process.  I whack down a pile of trees and Jo-Ann skids them and me out to a landing where she uses the skid-steer's 4 in 1 bucket to grab the trees and lift them up to a comfortable height for a guy with a recovering back to whack them up into blocks.  Way easier than bending over to cut.  The chain lasts a lot longer as it is less likely to touch the ground.  Then she pushes the blocks up into a pile awaiting loading, again via skid-steer, into a dumping trailer for the trip back to the house. The weather is very cool....

Spent the last couple of days, slithering in the mud, inhaling fiberglass particles, getting covered with rusty leaking water, and trying not to catch a house on fire.  Yep, you guessed it.  I'm plumbing.  Nasty job. We think Grandmas has been sitting cold for at least Six or Seven years. Not properly drained, the occasional -30 weather split copper pipes and wrecked a lot of the plumbing. It doesn't look like it was ever done to proper standards in the first place.  Hugyballed.  Poly pipe clamped to copper.  The soldered joints all look like this: And these are some of the better ones.  The elbows seem to split.  And of course the risers.  The 1/2 inch copper lines entering the wall ( which is actually the floor) have all split inside the walls. Thank God for the guy who invented PEX conduit.   Replacing copper and lead solder is pretty easy.  Except for where the connections have to be made where my long handled PEX plier...

We just got our connection to the WWW back.  Our wireless modem had bit the dust and we just replaced it.  Nice to be able to get to the google plex via the kitchen table.  Connecting from the office via cable and radio to a mountain 17 kilometers away just seems like, well, working.  From the kitchen table it's more like the before breakfast or during lunch break. Like most projects putting up the acre of pig pasture fence took a lot longer than I originally anticipated. The Forman was constantly in my face:  Some of my co-workers spent a lot of time napping on company time.  Fortunately company showed up and was immediately pressed into service. This fellow doesn't live very far away, but right now seems more interested in gleaning the remnants of a poor Saskatoon berry crop in preparation for the Winter nap. A lot of wire, but so far no bears have made it in or pigs out.. Some dogs and a cat or two have had a rude s...