Cocooning through the cold…

We finally got some decent January weather. Look at this…

Do you see that? Do you see that? It’s the end of January, and that’s all the wood I’ve used all winter long. I’m a little disgusted. I expected the woodshed to be nearly 2/3 empty by now, instead I’ve just now reached the bottom of the first tier. Anything I don’t burn, I have to move when I tear down the woodshed to build a bedroom in that spot. Of course the good news is that the less wood I burn this winter the less I have to cut next autumn, but don’t interrupt my grumpy mood with cheery facts.

It has been a wet but freakishly warm winter, up till the beginning of this week. Now it has stayed freezing day and night.

This week I’m going through firewood. Also having to swap out the chickens’ ice chunks for liquid water 3-4 times a day. No problem at the Fortress of Attitude, of course, but it’s a bit more complex at Landlady’s Big Chickenhouse. I have to haul water there in five-gallon jugs, which must then be used up because a partial jug will freeze solid overnight. I swap waterers back and forth, leaving the frozen one in front of the chickenhouse which (when it’s sunny) absorbs enough sun heat to melt the contents. And it’s been at least partly sunny every day this week, so that’s good.

But anyway, that’s why posting has been sparse this week – there’s nothing whatsoever going on except cold-weather maintenance. In and out and back and forth over the ridge tending chickens, never come back inside without another armload of wood, let the stove die long enough to clean out the ashes every other day or so. Otherwise, read books. I did actually have a houseguest overnight earlier this week which is unusual enough to have made this an extraordinary week indeed. But that was guy talk, nobody’s business.

So more later, maybe.