Project 75 degrees and other unimportant things

Yesterday was one of those dark, snowy days where you kind of felt like somehow December had sneaked into February. I didn't much care for it.

On the bright side, it is February (not December) and we're actually closer to March now than we are to the first day of February. Last week, Andy and I spent a few minutes rearranging the woodpile and realized we have more firewood than we thought. Some of the wood has been waiting patiently to be burned since summer 2010 and that means we're running out of time before the wood gets "punky" (i.e. rotting, wet, hard to burn and doesn't release much heat). Since we'll hopefully receive a fresh delivery of firewood next month, we've launched "Project 75 degrees" to use up all of the older firewood. If the temperature in the cabin falls below 75 degrees, that means it's time to throw another piece of wood in the stove! Throw on your surf shorts and flip-flops and come visit! ;)

I might as well say it here to hold myself accountable, but I've decided to give up chocolate for Lent. I haven't successfully given up anything for Lent since I was 18 and since I'm not Catholic, I'm hardly required to give anything up. But I kind of like the willpower challenge, as well as the reminder that we can live perfectly happy lives without certain luxuries in our lives. As a result, I've been drinking copious amounts of mint tea, in lieu of cocoa, to trick my palette into thinking I've had a treat. My cousin gave up beer for Lent and the two of us have never looked forward to Sundays so much in our lives.

This past week, I planned out six different meals to make for supper. I made a grand total of three of those meals. Not because we went out to eat or someone fell ill, but because we ended up with enough leftovers to last us the whole week from those three meals. This never happens.  Despite my best planning for leftovers, inevitably all leftovers get demolished for lunch (or breakfast if Andy was especially fond of it) before they can ever make their way to the dinner table the next night. We must be eating less because despite both and Andy and I feel like we're eating perfectly normal sized meals three times a day, our fridge has been overflowing with leftovers. Apparently we have become the people who say, "Oh, just a little piece."
 

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Wordless Wednesday: The Mythical Firewood Arrives

Since, I don't know, February, Andy's been planning out our firewood for this winter. We got a cord of firewood a couple months back which, in reality, was probably plenty to get us through this winter, but we'd also been planning on getting some un-split, uncut firewood to put up to dry for next year. It finally arrived today!

Approximately 4 cords of firewood. (For the record, we use between 2-3 cords a winter.)

The wood kind of instantaneously multiples as soon as it falls out of the truck.

Guess these two tools'll be getting a workout in the next couple weeks. We're going to be nice and toasty this winter, for sure.

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Thank Goodness for Mailboxes and Pies

I forgot it was going to snow yesterday. Maybe because Wednesday was sunny, glorious and subsequently cold: so cold in fact, that Andy and I spent a good portion of the evening watching the outside thermometer dip down below zero. But when I got up yesterday and saw the temperature had risen to 20 degrees outside, I knew something was up. Sure enough, all yesterday I looked out the window and saw nothing but white: the far shore of the lake disappeared in a howling swirl of wind and snowflakes.

On Wednesday, I also had a great writing day with Rose & Co. As we sat around the table working on our writing prompts, Rose set about writing a short story about “woe.” In the story, she artfully described all the ways we keep ourselves miserable during the winter months. You know: no exercise, too much chocolate, dwelling on the darkness and cold, staying up too late and subsequently starting our days too late.

The story struck a chord.

After a blah, blah, blah snowy November, I’ve tried avoiding woe this December. That means throwing myself into work, adopting a nearly daily exercise routine and not “eating my feelings.”

But oh when it’s blustery and cold and snowy, it’s hard to make yourself go outside.

Luckily, yesterday I had to go outside. The wintery weather had pretty much depleted our wood rack inside and I needed to fill it. And then there’s the mailbox, the hallowed mailbox. The possibility of mail waiting for me in the mailbox each afternoon is so alluring, it gets me outside making the mile-long round trip out to the mailbox even on days like yesterday when I was so bundled up you could just see my eyes peering out from between my hat and my scarf.

I finished my work hours for the week early yesterday and this felt like a major accomplishment. (Never mind the gazillion other “to-do” commitments I need to address before the week’s done). When I got back from filling the wood box and getting the mail, I couldn’t stand the thought of parking myself in front of the computer again. So I thought to myself: “I’m going to bake a pie.”

Regardless of your feelings about the overall quality of the movie Waitress, I adore the idea of
baking pies as therapy. And yesterday baking a pie full of blueberry loved seemed like a really good idea.

It was a good idea.

Sometimes life needs to be simplified if we’re to escape woe’s clutches. Things like Christmas cards arriving from faraway friends and or making a flakey pie crust while filling the house with the wonderful smell of baked goods are perfect antidotes to winter woe.

Just one more reason why life is better with butter.

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Hunkering Down

Tonight the NOAA weather forecast reads as so:

Tonight: Rain. Areas of fog after 1am. Low around 32. Breezy, with a south wind between 20 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%.

Wednesday: Snow before 1pm, then rain and snow. High near 39. West wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

The radar looks like this:

As the wind howls and the rain (soon to be snow) splatters against the windows, it sounds like a good night for pizza, wine and a big fire ripping away in the wood stove.

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Settling In For the Winter

The old Yodel stove

Summer went out like a candle this year and the last three weeks have been drizzly and cold. Today marks the autumnal equinox, as if we need one more reminder that winter just isn't getting farther away. Lately, as we hurry to slop paint on the new shed before it gets too cold, we keep sneaking glances at the wood pile, wondering if it'll be enough to last through an "almost guaranteed to be" five month winter.

It's hard to tell what the winter will truly bring, although we certainly like to devote a fair amount of time speculating on what the winter months might bring. After all, last year's wimpy winter must mean "we're due."  And haven't the fuzzy caterpillars seemed especially fuzzy? As much as I try to avoid the Farmer's Almanac approach to weather predictions, I can't help but remember that the infamous 1991 Halloween Blizzard followed a summer so beastly and muggy that my brother and I spent most of it playing in the unfinished basement. That summer, the frosting on my brother's mid-July birthday cake slid down the sides as he blew out the candles. What does that meltingly awful summer weather sound like? Oh yeah, this summer . . .

But if the ol' north wind decides to dump two - four feet of snow on us this October 31st, we'll be ready. Well, kind of.  (Still haven't quite wrapped my mind around the fact that I'll be living 55 miles away from the nearest grocery store this winter.)  But we do have a brand spankin' new wood stove that will help us burn through that wood pile just a little slower and allows us to use a renewable, carbon neutral energy source for most of our heating this winter.

This is the new Lopi Endeavor stove we bought last 'weekend.' We can fit a ton more wood inside the burn box  and the stove allows us to burn each piece of wood much more efficiently instead of sending most of the firewood's energy up the chimney like that last stove did. Since I'll be working from home all winter, I'm rather fond of the idea of not having to spend most of day tending the fire. After all, there's a reason why Hestia (the Greek goddess of the hearth) always gets forgotten . . . .

Andy warms himself in front of the stove

Once we got the stove home, Andy spent most of the following two days not talking to me. So absorbed in the fitting of pipes and cutting of holes in ceilings and roofs was he that he hardly even remembered to eat until the first fire was crackling in the stove. Now he's taken to sitting on the floor by the stove and smiling at it. He's also taken to talking to me again, although a fair bit of the conversation still centers around the awesomeness of the stove.    

They say "home is where the heart is." But in northern Minnesota, it might be more apt to say "home is where the hearth is." Tonight the stove sends out a warm orb through the cabin, taking the chill off this fall night. Will it be enough to keep us cozy and warm this January? Only time will tell.

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Wordless Wednesday: Next Project

Just when we'd hit the home stretch with the shed building project, a big load of this winter's fuel arrived. I guess we know what the next project is . . . .

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