Homestead forum diaspora

32F today in NH, going to be in the mid 40's tomorrow before we cool down again.

12 inches of new snow and still coming down.

I have all my favorite seed catalogs, don't know if I'm going to order anything. I'd like to, but I really have plenty of seeds from last year and before. I'm just a seed junkie, I guess.

All things considered, I may do an abbreviated garden, too, Peggy. You have a good point about all work and no play. I don't know how fast my hand function will return, either. I think maybe I need to concentrate on fun, this year. I may have to beat Del with a stick to get him to relax and play a little.

Today's high was 53F. Tonight's low, 3F. Tommorow is expected to reach a high of 3F, and a low of -2F. Some weather sources say -7F, but at that point who cares, it's just too damn cold!

My bent glass straw from Simply Straws (which gave Col the squrimimg heebie-jeebies) finally broke. I knocked my travel mug off the table and it fell with the straw straight down. They are guaranteed for life, if you break it, ever, they replace it. I sent in my reqplacement request and photo of the broken straw today. I don't know how many times I've dropped that thing, I was just thinking last night how amazing it was that I hadn't broken it yet.

 51f here and raining, the cold front will be here VERY soon...they say our low tonight will be 7f. 

I guess I better lay a fire, gonna need it .

In this extremely cold winter I often recall the old one room school house on 5 acres the next township to the west in which I homesteaded before I came here. The 12 cords of oak I burned in a winter, the water pump freezing, water lines freezing, constantly stoking the wood stove but still waking in the mornings with my water glass next to the bed skimmed over with ice...breaking ice out of the goats' water, banking the little slabwood barn with strawbales...just how difficult everything would become in these temperatures. I'd longed for years to build an earth shelter of my own design...four years later, on this land within the boundaries of a state forest, that dream came to fruition. Not to say that it hasn't taken loads of hard work, time, effort (and joy) to get to where we are now...but, to awaken to the warmth, to burn 1/5th of the wood, to not have to struggle on these days that find us with wind chills in the 60 to 70 below zero range...a dream come true through inspiration and perspiration...

30 years here now...

Sunny weekend in the 40's here in North Bend.  On Saturday we drove a bit up I-90 East to the Denny Creek Recreation Area and took a little hike up to Franklin Falls.  Trail was snowy and icy but it was the most beautiful and magical hike we've taken so far.  As we were returning just after noon, the sun caused a bit of melting on the tops of trees and we'd get this gorgeous snow effect in the trees with the sun streaming between them.  The pictures and videos we took can't even do it justice.  

Sunday morning we got the news that Mike's grandmother passed away.  She had been in hospice for months after suffering from worsening Alzheimer's disease.  I have to admit I mourned her when the disease took her away more than when we actually found out she had passed.  To me she was already long gone.   She was one of those people who loves everyone she meets, such a warm happy soul.  

We spent the day so far just watching football and took the dogs to the local dog park, but it was so muddy we didn't stay long.  The dogs still had time to get filthy.

As always, lots of crazy stuff happening here. But that was yesterday when I almost burned my house down with a chimney fire and no water to put it out with. I must say it sucked the rat's ass! but I got the fire out though I will need to replace the stovepipe. I was also able to get a new generator, repair the water pump and get water to the yaks. Even without the genny, I had the hand pump for water but the yaks would jump the fence, stick their nose in the buckets while I was trying to fill it and destroy the bucket!

Anyway, the dogs and I are living in the summer room until I can get the new piping. The summer room has its own, still functioning, woodstove. There always seems to be some crises to occupy myself with. Am I that wicked that I deserve no rest?

The detailed version of Chris's plight is grueling !

50 degrees this morning !!!!!!  It looks like a scene out of a movie set,  FOG everywhere.  Supposed to get down to 5 by the end of the afternoon .  Not looking forward to the ice.

Hmmm, after abt a foot of snow overnight I see this.......

......Flurries off of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay will intensifyinto frequent strong snow squalls by this afternoon across theregions. Many of the snow squalls will extend quite far inland as thewinds become quite strong and gusty. Local snowfall amounts of 15 to30 cm are quite possible in snow squalls by Tuesday morning.

Acombination of the dangerous snow squalls with extreme wind chills ofminus 35 to minus 40 will produce frequent blizzard conditions thisafternoon and tonight. Frequent to widespread very low to nilvisibilities with near whiteout conditions are expected especially inexposed areas during the snow squalls.......

Nice......!

The water pipes to the shower are in an outside wall, which is one of the walls on the front porch. Also, when it's very cold and windy, we lose a lot of heat from the dog door.

Yesterday, before the temp dropped, Del made a door frame covered with plastic, and on the bottom of it, put in a second dog door covered with carpet strips. Our front door is in an inset alcove, with a porch landing, the steps are outside the alcove. He put up the plastic covered frame on the outer edge of the alcove, so the alcove is enclosed on all sides now, with a dog door on the bottom left. The other dog door is on the bottom right. This also encloses that outside wall that has water pipes in it. The draft from the dog door is greatly reduced. the flap isn't blowing open at all, which is a major improvement.

We also brought in our portable heater, one of those oil-filled radiator things, and put it in the bathtub to keep that wall warm. We already had another heater under the house that we plug in when it gets cold enough to endanger the pipes. Usually we only have to plug it in a few days here and there, and everything's fine. But it's really rare for the temps to get below the mid-teens, much less sub-zero.

After the weather warms up again, we'll see about insulating the hell out of that outside wall. We'll have to take off the vinyl siding to do it right, but for temporary we can put a couple of layers of cardboard over it, that should help some, anyway.

Our cat's door has been freezing up...and it was difficult to get the front door closed...32 below F upon waking this morning...currently warmed up to 26 below.  

Kezzie ... Rob ... next time y'all decide to come south to visit folks be nice an leave the cold weather at home ok ....... and please .... please ... if by some chance ya do sneak some down with ya .....TAKE the dang blasted crap home with ya when ya leave !!!! ...........hahahahahahahaha colder here today than it is @ Rob an Kez's house ........ that just ain't right .......... we are wondering where our warm winters have gone too......

You guys are really getting the cold weather this year! We are sitting around 90F and we are getting some nice afternoon showers, Col will be using bad language when referring to the lawn very soon .......

First day back at the office wasn't too bad........

Crazy weather here in NH.  55F and pouring rain which means it will become a real mess in a few hours when it dips below freezing again.  Will be below freezing until Friday when we jump back into the 30s.

Stay warm people it's all down hill from here.

Well boys and girls...good news. This Friday is forecast to be 26 ABOVE zero and sunny...and then next week looks like shorts weather.

In from clearing the driveway abt 2 hrs ago, poor old Fergi (the tractor who is almost as old as me) was hardly able to push her way through the 12 to 18" of white shit whilst giving a blow job at the same time.......

Just out again for the mail and I see that annother 3" down already........ sigh.

Is it spring yet?

A cool 58 deg here this morning,so me and Vic went to the gym and worked out for a couple of hours instead of golfing.Supposed to be cool tomorrow and then back up into the 70's later in the week.Time to unlimber Big Bertha and send a little white ball a-sailing.