Cooler in the pines

September 15, 2007 (4:48am)

27º F, Clear, No Wind.

Good morning,

It is cooler in the pines this morning. The weather guys have put out several warnings and statements for this morning; Freeze warning (27º F at the moment); Special Weather Statement (possible slippery roads thanx to rain lastnight and freezing temperatures this morning); Record Report (lowest high on record for yesterday 50º F); and a National Sever Weather Warning ( freezing temperatures). With all that activity for just a heavy frost, wonder what the have up for when it actually is cold and a snow storm around here. Guess we will have to wait to find out. More later!

It really was a raw and cold day yesterday. The wind was really blowing from the north at a pretty good clip all day and there were on and off light showers all day, adding high humidity to the mix. It was a shirt sleeve day, if the shirt was wool, other wise jackets were the dress of the day. I had to chuckle at Margriet yesterday morning when she went bombing out of the house sans jacket and only a light shirt. She went to the main house and back, but decided that a jacket was defiantly needed! She didn’t repeat the event. Today it is to start warming again and by mid-week back close to the mid-80's again.

Anticipating the cooler temperatures, I checked out the gas furnace in the Hobbit Hus and got it fired up. Not a bad unit to light. Much easier than most. It does kick out a lot of heat, at least at these temperatures, so we are rather satisfied with it. The unit does not have a circulation fan on it, but there is a ceiling fan in here which does a very good job of moving the air around. The thermostat is off by about 10º F, so need to set it lower than the temperature we want. I can see the only hard parts of the house to heat are going to be the bathroom and bedroom. There is a window between the gathering room and the bedroom, but might need to add a small fan to move air into it better. Time will tell. I plan to put a transom in the wall between the bathroom and the gathering room to bring some heat in there. Also may need a small fan there too to move the air.

We did manage to get the truck unloaded. Since there were larger items in it (and my “go-bang sticks” - rifles and shotgun), the unloading went faster, but with a different kind of effort - both of us were required to handle much of it, rather than just carrying boxes. Had to work around the rain showers some too. Not much came in here, most went to the main house. This little place is pretty full - and then some. Sure will be nice to get everything in it’s place and most of the remodeling finished in here so I can get after the main house and do things proper.

We did find a used outdoor wood heater to buy from Eli after he made some calls. It is a bit bigger than the one we had looked at before, but about $2,000.00+ less in price. It is a Johnson Outdoor Wood Furnace, Little John model, ( http://johnsonoutdoorwoodfurnaces.com/ ) coming from the factory - near Waupaca. The unit weighs more than a ton, so I don’t think it will not blow away in the wind! Once it is on the ground, it ain’t gonna be moved any. I talked them into delivering it here as I really have no way to do that. I think my days of splitting wood will be fewer as this furnace takes logs (yes logs) 3' long in the firebox. I think the only wood splitting needed will be for kindling and enough wood to get the start-up bed of coals going. After that, rather large pieces of wood. The wood furnace should be here in a couple of weeks. Then it will mean more digging and like that. Hope I can have it hooked up and running before spring, but that would be a real long shot as I have to plumb all of the heating lines, &c. too. Not exactly sure how that will all go together yet. More Pex piping to do! Should be interesting though. Have some other things to do before that happens though.

While at Eli’s, we checked on the tractor too. Everything from the transmission forward is gone! He got the engine apart and sent the block in to have it machined and restored. When done, at least the engine should be as good as new again. It probably will outlive me. Since we had not really settled on a firm price, we got that out of the way too. The price did go up from his original estimate, but we settled on much less than I had anticipated. That is good!! He has a cousin that has some sheet metal for it that is in better shape than what is on this one, so will put that on instead of what is there. That will be nice and since the price is free, I like that too. It sounds like the end of next week or the following week it should be finished and ready to go. He also will put on a bucket and get that working too. Hope the snow holds off until it get it and learn how to use it.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><