It’s never too early to say I hate winter.
Outside temp in the forties this morning. First time, but it’s been clearly headed in this direction for several days. Grumble. Time to clean the chimney and find out what, if anything, is living in the top of the wood stove. After what happened in February, I’m afraid to fire it up till I do. Also need to get my chains back from the saw shop, because it’s time to get serious about cutting firewood. I’ve got less than half a cord cut and I want to be in better shape for the onset of real winter than I was last year.
Also: Anybody want a kitten? Geez. I’ve seen some manic kittens before, but I don’t ever recall anything like this. Poor Ghost is gonna run off and join a monastery or something, and I might join him. The only time we ever get any peace around here is when Zoe’s asleep. Which fortunately, since she’s a kitten, is frequently. Zoe has become obsessed with wrestling Click, who is not even remotely interested in wrestling with her. Little Bear’s the only one who can tolerate her when she’s like this, which is whenever she’s awake, and even he sometimes finds her tiresome. I keep telling myself she’ll grow out of it. Not really sure I believe it.
Four days before my daughter and her family arrive! Yay! Gotta have a talk with H about paying me for shit-shoveling on time this week, because I’ve got about a dollar and a half to my name and need to get some regular-people food in the house.
Busy day ahead. Shit-shoveling this morning. Landlady’s coming tomorrow and wants a series of dump runs to clear out accumulated junk on her property. I’ve got piles of sorted junk in front of the barn, ready to load in the Jeep trailer. I couldn’t load the trailer till I was ready to live with it attached to the Jeep for obvious reasons, but I’ll do that this afternoon so we can get started right away.
There was this crib in front of Landlady’s House, all full of wood scraps, that dates back to the build. Some is OSB and plywood but there’s a lot that will make good woodstove fodder. I spent quite a lot of time last week sorting through it, and the scrap that shouldn’t go in a stove is piled up for hauling. I’d rather burn it – I did burn quite a lot of it – but that stuff really clabbers up a burn barrel. All the rest got sorted for size, and I fed the long pieces into Landlady’s chop saw. If she uses it at the same rate as last year she’s got several years’ worth of kindling neatly stacked under the barn’s overhang, plus what I put in one of those big Sterilite containers and hauled to her house.
I must say, the Lair’s rebuilt electrical system weathered the (hopefully done now) cloudy spell quite well. Once I get the second PV panel up I should be in much better shape for winter. With a very deal of luck it’ll arrive tomorrow, but I don’t really expect it for another week. S’s solar power business has been going great guns and he hasn’t been able to get up here as often as he used to.
