Thursday, October 7, 2010

Enjoying the Sunshine

We have been having some amazing weather this week!  High teens, low twenties, lots of sunshine!  It feels like spring!  The nights, of course are cool, dropping below freezing now.

Perfect weather for firewood.  The cool nights serve as a reminder to get it done, NOW, before we freeze our asses off.  The warm days make us want to spend time outdoors, soaking up all that sunny D!

So, it's been a good week so far.  Three gorgeous days, three loads of wood (and 1 partridge!).  Hauled up, cut up, even piled in the basement.  I think we have more wood stored there this year than last.  Hubby & the boys built a slide for the wood to drop closer to the front end of the wood pile, instead of in the middle of the room, where the window is.  This allows me to pile wood the opposite direction than we used to, filling from the edge of the slide to the wall.  Before, once we filled three rows, dropping more wood in would knock a fourth row over, or the piler in the head.  Ouch.  I think the most we ever fit in before was 12 face cords.  This year, we're already at about 13 face cords, with room for another row and a half- about 6 more face cords.  If we have a mild winter again, that might be all we need!!  We'll still keep cutting as long as the winter holds- ideally we want a two year supply so it can dry and season properly- but it's very exciting to think that we may not need to open up the basement in the middle of winter, freeze out the house, and spend a day refilling the firewood!

Four more gorgeous days in the forecast, and then some rain. 

My peppers have aphids- in the house.  Weird.  I don't remember ever getting them outside.  Going to sprinkle with diatomaceous earth today.  The smallest pumpkin is now fully orange.  Two larger pumpkins are turning nicely.  The biggest one is still very green.  I hope it turns soon, before it really gets cold and I have to bring them in.

My first greenhouse is under construction!
My Dad did an amazing log cabin type of construction on it.  I wish I could have seen it in my head when he was planning it.  Up til this point I was really wondering how it was going to turn out.  Need to have more faith!
Starting to come together!  It'll be ready for plastic in the spring!


If you can strain your eyes a bit, that little dot way out there, just in front of the treeline- is a white tail deer!  Take a minute, right now, to figure out how the zoom on your camera works.  Trying to figure it out before the wild life runs away is a bad plan.  Honestly though, it is a deer!


Deer are kind of new to our area.  It's a side effect of global warming, the deer moving farther north.  There aren't too many of them yet, and a harsh winter could still wipe them out, but I'm hoping they make it. 

Speaking of global warming- what's with the news?  The new governor general starts off his career with a new action plan & report on global warming & it's effects on Canada.
Not too much in the news story there, but when I watched the news report on tv, and later a little blurb from George Stromboulopolus, I'm being made to feel global warming/climate change is a good thing for Canada.  Ok, I won't argue, in some ways it really is.  Increased tourism in the arctic, due to water travel/melted ice, longer, warmer growing seasons, all that land up north freed up for development...  There are many possible side effects that could be great for our northern climate.  But that doesn't make climate change a good thing.  First off, if our weather becomes so welcoming, and south of us becomes unbearable, do we really think those people south of us are going to roll over and play dead?  Come on people...  We will be invaded.  Oh, and with all that new coastline up north, won't that be easy, for foreigners to get in...  Hmmm...  Not pretty.  Our military is not nearly capable of defending us if the shit hits the fan.

So, back to the point...  Why is the media trying to tell us that we should embrace global warming?  Bad for the world is definitely bad for us, even if I could grow peppers right outside in the sun...  Crazy.  They're supposedly sending out education packets to schools, targeting teens as the new wave of environmental reformers, so it should be interesting to get #1's take on it all.

Nelly!  She was much more cooperative in letting me figure out how the zoom works.  Isn't she getting fat?  Love her!

2 comments:

  1. Is your basement completely given over to firewood? I would think it would be extremely comfortable not to have to go out in the weather to bring wood inside. That is some tiny deer in the picture. If you had not pointed it out, I would have missed it.

    I know all too well how to zoom on my camera. The trouble is I sometimes go past optical zoom into digital zoom, ruining the picture anyway.


    I wish I had a greenhouse, and I live in deep South of US.

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  2. Our basement is pretty huge. The main room has the stairs, under which I pile 'over nighters- large pieces that will burn slowly, the wood/oil furnace, hot water tank, and the wood pile. The wood pile area is about 10' X 12'. The cold room is about 8' X 10', and then there's another room that's mostly storage, but space enough for a table to do some craft/hobby type stuff.

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