The Holidays have come and gone here in America, and in my particular little corner of the globe, winter has moved in fiercely. Temps have been in the low-double and single digits (Farenheit, which is negative numbers to the rest of the world) and winds have been brisk, driving the wind chill into negative temperatures (no matter which side of the thermometer you read!).
We set up a tree this year. It's a fake tree, but looks magnificently realistic. It's so realistic, it even leaves a pile of debris on the floor. They're not as sharp as real pine needles, but it will still be at least April before we have them all vacuumed up.
Hedge Witch's whole family was in from all over the country, and they all have children that are still of an age to be excited about Christmas. It was a heartwarming holiday, sorely needed after the miserable summer and fall we had. Nature chimed in by throwing us this heart shaped bay leaf we found while preparing holiday foods.
All the extra visitiors meant that we needed some space in the driveway, which is something we just haven't had to worry about too much the last few years. One of the things that's been taking up a lot of space are these old silt socks I get from work. They're filled with partially composted wood mulch, and the socks make a decent porous weed barrier underneath new garden boxes. Cutting them open and dumping them into the cart so I can pile up the mulch is a tiring and monotonous task, but it pays off with about 5 cubic yards of free mulch that's loaded with mycorrhizae.
I've been wanting to clean up the driveway area for a while now anyway. I have an old truck and two old motorcycles buried out there that I have the parts to fix, and now just have to find the time. While I've been looking for that time, the roses have been moving back in. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I've been fighting wild roses for ownership of this property since I moved in. I'm winning the larger war, but they still take many battles. This battle was mine, though, and it paid off handsomely in rose hips. I don't really need any rose hips right now, so I left these for the birds... after taking a little snack for myself, of course.
These roses were growing so prolifically, I figured it might be worth it to haul them all out and process them for cane. It seemed like a good idea when I first had it, but it lost more and more appeal the further I got into the process. It did yield quite a pile of decent weaving cane, but by the time I was done cutting it, dragging it out of the ditch, and processing it, I didn't have any energy left for making baskets. The pic below is the last of three piles I dragged out.
Amidst all this activity, we decided that cranking the oven up to 500 for some homemade pizza would be a good way to warm up the house a bit. I don't normally like holes while I'm working the dough for the pizza crust, but this one was just too adorable to get upset about.
With the sub-freezing temps, I felt it was a good time to check back up on the rocket stove. It lost some of the thinner facing on the outside, but inside the firebox where the clay got thoroughly fired was still very solid. The system is too beat up right now to use my main heat exchanger, but the outlet pipe still warms the basement wall and I have A LOT of spare wood to burn this year, so I decided to fire it up.
Restarting it the second morning, the exhaust pipe was so cold that once the smoke turned to steam, it started forming ice crystals on the inside of the pipe. I have a 'ground' exhaust on this as well, for when the smoke and steam is too cold to rise up the pipe. It was fun watching the steam get warm enough to come up the top for a while, then get too cold and come back out the ground pipe, covering my hillside with an eerie fog.
It took a while to get going, but it was in full furnace mode soon enough to get the chill out of the house before the REAL cold set in. I'd like to get some more work done on the rocket stove this winter, but it probably won't happen. I have too many other tasks around the house that are quite a bit more pressing, like repairing the roof.
Another one of those more pressing tasks is getting the driveway cleaned up, so I have room to set up my garage-in-a-box this winter. I need the enclosure to finish the engine rebuild on the Suzuki, and hopefully get the three wheeler and four wheeler both up and running in new condition. A big part of that cleanup is stripping down appliances that I've been holding onto as parts for future projects, like this cooling unit from an old freezer. Someday the rocket stove will power a steam system, and I'll run that steam through things like this to make heat in the house.
Well, you know I've been up to more, including posting an entry (soon to be 2) with my alt for a Comedy Contest you can find out about here. It's hosted by a funny fella in a great community that is worth joining if you like a good laugh now and again.
I hope to see you here or there, and I hope life treats you well in the meantime. Stay safe out there, Hive!
