Merry Christmas everyone. Warmed up to 11 below F ambient. Gotta shovel out the ashes. Then reload with poplar.
Ill try and blow some your way. Friday i plowed that 8", but knew freezing rain was coming, so left a few inches to soak it up, hoping to plow the slop . My plan failed. I waited to long and it froze. 3" of ice makes it harder to plow. I got everything plowed from today and the town guy owed me a favor (i took some trees down for him) and he sanded my drive and even left a pile! I'm very thankful for that! The snow stopped for a bit, we got about 10" and now it's started again, pretty heavy. The winds are beginning to pickup as well. Expecting 40mph, with wind chills to get well below 0° tonight with a high of about 7°F tomorrow.
Down to 22 out, heading for 11 overnight with 30 mph winds. 75 inside upstairs above the stove room, have some ash and hickory chugging. It's been a good Christmas !!!!
Yes I trimmed the bushy end off but decided I was probably going to get hurt trying to cut the bottom off so it would drop down so I called a big friend of mine and he came up and pushed it away from the roof and over, he said it was wicked heavy....Sorry no picks and now the whole mess is buried in snow...
The apple load from this morning has burned through (man a whole boiler full of some smells GREAT!) Topped up with red oak after visiting the grandparents. Grandpa is 90 and had the driveway cleaned and salted by the time we arrived with lunch. He's an old French Canadian bull - family did logging and smuggling(!!) up around the Newport area of VT back in the day. We were chatting about the place our family has been vacationing for years (Holland VT) and he told me some fantastic stories. I am so thankful to still have him (and Grandma!) around.
Its about as cold as it gets here in far eastern MD, mid 20's and teens with wind chill. Stoves been rolling for last 24hrs, i have two big american holly splits in now, hearth is loaded with 3yr red oak for the over night. Thursdays high is only 25*, thats serious for around here. Will be rolling through a lot of wood this week, but it will stay 72-74* in house entire week, I'll make sure of it!
-13 feels like -25 right now and getting colder. Now for the bad news. Spent too long visiting somewhere else for Christmas dinner...the temp on the OWB is down to 118! Ran out of wood to burn in the firebox since we visited too long and the wind was driving through the house cooling it down faster making the furnace run longer and creating a call for heat! Kicker stove is lit, OWB is on full recovery mode!