Busy Week

Since I started with that title, I'll address things in the order that they've come up this week.

Monday:

I had five piles of brush cuttings that needed to be burned this winter (burning season in January 15 through May 15). Three of the piles were close together and were obvious candidates for burning at the same time. Neighbor Jim considers himself a pyromaniac and was eager to participate. Monday was the day. I got the necessary permit and gave Jim a call.

The three piles consisted of 20+ foot strands of wild roses. With the thorns, there was no untangling them. We got a good hot fire burning in the middle pile and Jim decided that it was time to bring in his Kubota backhoe. He pulled the one pile in on itself to get it all over the flame and then lifted the other 2 piles over onto the first. We were through burning by noon. Gotta get me a tractor but I'll need a barn first and that's not likely to happen (good thing that we have a couple of helpful friends with tractors).

I'll probably take on the other two piles myself (one at a time). The tractors wouldn't be able to get to the sites (streams/ditches would be collapsed).

Tuesday:

We put a pellet stove in when we moved in. Everything was fine the first year. The second year, the combustion motor jammed early in the year and then failed later in the year. This year, it overheated and burned out the igniter and then we started having problems with it refusing to start. All of these visits (plus the annual maintenance visits) were at least a couple of hundred dollars apiece. I called the company last week and told them that we were ready to have them yank the stove and that we would go back to burning firewood.

They sent their chief tech out today at no charge (so far - holding our breath). He was here for 3 hours and said that he hadn't felt this tested in 2 years. The combustion motor needed to be replaced again. That done, the igniter didn't work so he removed it, tested it and reinstalled it. The computer ended up being the problem. Repair techs don't usually have computers on board but he had suspected that from the start and put one in the truck. The stove is running better than when it was brand new.

Wednesday (tomorrow):

I mentioned in an earlier post that the heavy snow had melted very quickly and flooded the basement (warm days followed by heavy rain). A few but days after that, our well water turned murky. It's an artesian well and is several hundred feet deep but an occasional event can roil the aquifer. Apparently, this happened before and the previous owner had a water softener installed. We called the guy who had installed the softener and got him out. This murky water thing apparently last happened after the heavy snows of 2015. At the time, he repacked the softener (which took care of the problem) but also recommended an additional filtration system. The owner was about to sell the house so it's understandable that she didn't do it. In any case, tomorrow's the day. We're going to have him install a multilayer filtration system that will remove iron, hydrogen sulphide, manganese, etc.

-JC-

Crazy Weather

After several weeks where the temperature only approached freezing a couple of times, we finally had a break this week. We had 2 or 3 days that started out in the 50's and approached the 60's before end of day. The snow had drifted so the depth varied from 1' to 3' (it was deepest right up against the West side of the house).

The snow wasn't melting quite fast enough so we topped it off with a 2-4" downpour yesterday evening. Early in the evening, Kristen heard a crash downstairs and discovered that we had Niagara Falls coming in through one of the basement windows. The window was intact but it was completely submerged and the water was getting in around the sliding panels.

We immediately got outside and cleared the snow blockages that were keeping the water from draining way from the house. By this morning, the sump pumps had done their job and the basement was practically dry. Also by this morning, the snow was almost completely gone (we had no idea that snow could melt that fast!).

Naturally, there was a lot on the news this morning (just in time) about the steps that you need to take to prevent this from happening and the neighbors were more than willing to tell us of the steps that they took yesterday. Live and learn. Once the ground thaws, we'll probably be making some improvements to the structures that surround the window wells.

Now, we're experiencing a sudden temperature drop off. When we woke up this morning, it was 59°. By the time that we ate breakfast and set out for our walk, had dropped to 41° (it was 43° when I was putting on my coat but had dropped to 41° by the time that we headed out the door). By the time that we got back home, it had dropped to 37°. It's now 6pm and we're down in the high teens. That's a 40° drop since this morning.

-JC-

It's warmed up a bit... (updated)

It needed to be a little warmer before it could snow. We got up into the low 20's today but that was accompanied by what will probably qualify as a blizzard.

A blizzard is a snowstorm that is accompanied by at least 3 consecutive hours of 35+ mile per hour winds. It was very windy and our Acuweather app indicated wind speeds greater than 35 MPH for several consecutive hours. We'll see what they call it tomorrow.

It'd be tough to say how much snow we had today. It was very dry powdery stuff that tended to blow around (especially into the driveway). Some spots were very deep and other spots didn't even have enough to cover the footprints in the old snow.

We went out twice to blow the driveway. The first time was at noon and we probably cleared 6-8 inches. The second time was at 4:30 pm and was probably another 8-10 inches. It's still snowing lightly so we may be blowing the driveway again in the morning.

-JC-

Followup on Friday morning: We did get out bright and early to clear the last of the snow. A new cold snap has set in along with some pretty heavy winds. It's a clear blue sky but the wind chill right now (10am) is -26.

I did hold out long enough to take some pictures:

Taken from the small porch on the South (left) side of the house. Kristen walked around here through waist deep snow to shovel the porch.

Taken from that same porch.

Also from that porch.

And one more. The cleared path from the street is so that the fuel oil guy can get to the fill pipe.

With the dry powdery snow and high winds, there was hardly any collection on the roof.

The roof over the farmers porch was the exception. The collection here was partway up the windows so we got the roof rake and pulled most of it off.

I scared the birds away when I went out on the porch to take the earlier picture. This is taken through the kitchen window. The birds go nuts when it's cold. In yesterday's blizzard, they were on every perch and lined up on the ground and in the trees. It was something to see them battling the wind to get to the perches. They were flying into the wind but getting pushed backwards and still landing where they wanted to be.

-JC-

It's Been Cccccold!

I will try to add some pictures to this post but it really has been too cold to go outdoors.

That snow that I mentioned on December 10th melted somewhat but still coated the ground when we got hit again on Christmas morning (though we did get flurries almost every day in between). Christmas added another 6-8 inches. We had another couple of inches on December 30. That was our 45th wedding anniversary so, of course, we went out to dinner (our truck lives in the garage and the snow buildup from that night has yet to melt).

The news says that Boston has set an all time record for the number of consecutive days with a high of less that 20° F. We're much colder and the highest temp that we've noticed in the past couple of weeks was 11°  or maybe 13°. The past few mornings have been below zero. This morning was -6° with a wind chill of -32°.

This was at 10 am but notice the little numbers (highs and lows for the previous 24 hourss).

We ordinarily walk a mile or two every morning but the possibility of frostbite has kept us inside most days lately (we have had a couple of painful afternoon walks)

We're supposed to get back into the 30's next week and I'm looking forward to getting back to my brush cutting. Burning season starts on January 15 so I'm kind of looking forward to that (still cold but at least there's a fire).

We've caught a couple of mice in our trailer and thought that the proximity of our bird feeders might be a factor. We've moved the feeders to the other side of the house and love the view from the kitchen and from the upstairs family room. The birds seem to love it too. At times, we've seen birds at all 8 perches, on the ground under the feeders and waiting in the trees for an opening. The cardinals are especially numerous right now (they are very territorial in the summer but, when it gets cold, they seem happy to coexist).

I'm not intentionally sounding negative in this post. We still love it here. We've spent our entire lives in California and never experienced the seasons. This has been an extreme but it's been a new experience for us and we love it.

-JC-