How Cold was It?

Please stop me if this sounds like complaining because that is not my intent, but I feel compelled to share how things are...

So it's been cold lately. I've never had actual negative (F) temperatures since living in the States, but I've seen them now! It's not as bad this week as last, and I've learned to bundle up, and haven't had my car break down and been stranded on the side of the road or anything, so life is fine.

But the other day, I got brave and looked at the living room thermometer when I first got home from work: 42. That's with the oil stove going in the kitchen, but obviously the woodstove had gone out long ago. But don't panic: with Troy's super-duper fire starter I had a fire going quickly and within 30 minutes the temp was up 20 degrees. That's amazing to me.

But the real kicker of this post was what I found in the dishwasher on an evening a few days later. Troy had run the machine that morning or night before, and I was emptying it. To keep the top shelf items from dripping on the lower items, I of course empty the dishwasher from bottom up. When I get to the top shelf, I empty everything except the gladware containers. These, I flip upside down so that the water which has collected in the lip can drip out while I'm putting the other items away, so that when I come back to get them, they are relatively water free and ready to go into the drawer. Ok, now that I've set this all up: I'm flipping the gladware containers and notice one of them is "not like the others."

Do you see it?

The water in the lip of this one container has completely frozen solid. Not slushy, not ice flakes, but just solid ice that would not come out!

Just thought I'd share!

-christina

We're Bad Neighbours

Friday night Troy said it was the night for us to finish up some more Tyvek. (Could you hear my little, "yippee"?) A friend had come by to help the previous weekend and he and Troy got up one strip along the top of the south and west walls. And they had to do it in very high winds which threatened to carry them away at every moment. (I was inside minding the fire, in case you were wondering.)

Well Friday Troy wanted to get the four foot strip of Tyvek done on the north wall...and more if we were good. He argued that it wasn't windy. (It wasn't.) It wasn't frigid. (But it was cold.) And there wasn't 2 feet of snow on the ground. (Now, only about 6 inches, but it was covered with ice so easy to walk on...?) In any case, out we went.

And not surprisingly, it went fairly smoothly. We did get the strip put on the north wall and then proceeded to the south and west walls. For that we had to lift the bottom of the strip put up previously to tuck this one under, but it all just takes time. Nothing hard about it, I mean. Troy got it cut out around the door and windows and I just kept hammering in cap nails. After a couple tries (i.e. time to warm up in front of the fire) we each found the right glove combo to keep our hands warm enough.

I told Troy he would be in trouble if all this hammering adversely affected my knitting. Troy optimistically said that maybe it would help my knitting. And although it did tire my forearm, I did not notice any negative impact. (Did I hear a "Phew!" from you? Why thank you!)

Oh wait! Why are we bad neighbours? Oh yes, that is because we were hammering those hundreds of nails in from 7:00 to 9:30. Now a good one would take a tap, BAM, BAM and it would be in. But a bad one would take up to a dozen hits (bouncy plywood). I'm sure the neighbours did not enjoy. But I'm sure they're learning that if it's not one noise with us, it's another. Troy at one point wanted to bring over some of my canned pears to make nice with them, but I told him that he could spend all day canning his own pears (and only getting 5 quarts out of it) to bring to the neighbours. I know, I'm not very nice, but I do shingle. Keep that in mind before you tut tut your condemnation.

The temperature now IS frigid so not much work is going to be done outside. Not much work is getting done inside, actually, besides keeping the woodstove stoked. The living room (where the woodstove lives) is having trouble getting above 60. For fun, Troy took out his remote infrared thermometer and started measuring temperatures in the kitchen. This is with the oil stove in there going. Various places in the room read in the 50s and 40s, but the coldest temperature was measured on the floor near the west wall: 36 degrees. **36**!! That's cold. No wonder the heating pipes there froze and burst last year.

Anyway, enough of that. Troy says he is working as fast as he can and I don't mean to give him a hard time.

Take care. Keep warm. Pictures to follow tomorrow if I can leave the living room.

-christina

Windows are good; having one installed is even better

So I didn't want to write earlier in case it sounded like complaining, but now I am pleased to report that we have a new window installed in the dining room!

"What is there to complain about?" you ask? Well, during the process our house was without a window for a full day. I came home shortly before Troy on Tuesday and did notice that the house was chilly. But the weather's stayed cold and it's not unusual for the house to feel chilly. (We're talking low 50's F, just for a rough number. Cause I know one person's chilly is another's comfortable.) As I was thanking Troy for starting the fire in the woodstove, he made a comment to make me suspect what I soon confirmed: the west window in the dining room had been out all day!! The opening was covered with naught but an old thin curtain he had stapled to the outside frame. Brrr...

But as I said, things continued to progress and Troy had the window in by the end of the night. He had to grind at the oak frame so we also had a lot of smoke floating around the house, but it had cleared by the next morning. We got the window lifted into the opening (we are thankful for handles with good suction cups for lifting glass) and Troy got it sealed, caulked, and foamed. The house doesn't feel quite as drafty now.

And as expected, it looks great: just one big sheet of glass, 69" tall by 53" I believe. I may post a pic if I can get a good one. Getting a pic OF a window (instead of through a window) is a little tricky.

ttfn
-christina

A Shot (or Two) of Winter

This is our stacked wood supply. I think I've shown it before, but now you'll see it's missing a tooth. A big gap where one rack is empty. It's got another loose tooth too b/c the far right stack is almost emptied as well. I guess we've got enough for the winter, but it sure feels better to have full stacks than to be emptying them. However, we do have a supply of wood to take care of next summer. Here's a picture of how some of it looked after some recent snow:

Those chunks are even bigger than you are imagining them.

Here's a view of our backyard birdfeeder:

The cardinals are looking pretty fat so I guess Troy is keeping them well fed.

And here's another interesting shot from my ramble yesterday:

There were deer and rabbit tracks all around the edges of our lawn (and compost pile). But here I caught deer tracks (top), a people footprint, and rabbit tracks all in one spot. I felt like part of the community being there, like they let me in their club.

All for now,
christina