First Snow of the Year, Durango El Niño Winter Storm

We just had the first snow of the year which gave us a generous 8 inches of snow over the last 2 days! (maybe more if some hadn’t melted mid day). Sherlock can’t seem to find a place to pee and the cats hate how cold it makes their feet, but really, they’re all as excited as I am (maybe). On her walks, Sherlock’s leg hairs get little balls of snow stuck in them, and her beard. She races into the house shaking snowballs all over the place and hopping around like a wild donkey. I think she likes it.  Sherlock playing in the snow: video

We bought some wood the other day, and just in time. We showed up to pick up half our order to find about 6 people cutting, sawing and stacking our cords of wood for us. We could tell the wood wasn’t properly seasoned but it was cheaper than many people in the area, and we had a hard time even considering backing out after driving that far, seeing how many people were involved, and how much they needed the money. We’ve been drying it out in the house a stack at a time and I think it’ll work out fine once we get a routine. It takes a little while to get the fire to optimal temperature but it’ll get easier. This stove is twice the size of the last one we used and we’ll apparently need 4 times the wood. The house is much bigger though, so that’s one reason, but the house also has a surprising amount of windows, which is great for sunny days when we can get most of our heat from the sun. We closed off the spare bedroom and have been sucking up as much sun heat as we can when it’s sunny out – which, is pretty often really. We stacked half of our order under the porch in a “Lincoln log” style so they’ll dry faster and put the rest in the wood shed to get covered in snow til we get more tarps. We used so much wood yesterday when it was really overcast out that we’re starting to think we’ll need a lot more wood than 2 cords, of course the guy who doesn’t season his wood is available whenever we need more, but we may end up paying a little more or driving a long ways to get some decent stuff next time.

 

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