Now This is Winter

It just ain't properly Winter until you can go out to feed the critters or tend the wood furnace and come inside with ice in your beard. I especially know it's Winter when the ice melds the mustache whiskers to the upper beard whiskers in an attempt to freeze your mouth shut. Now that's some cold right there.

I'll be honest though experiencing true Winter only once or twice a year is alright with me. I would be happy if it just stayed in the 20's and 30's all Winter for the most part and only gave us a brief taste of this sub-zero stuff.

It's been riding around 6 or 7 degrees here most of the day, although it did climb up to a balmy 11 at one point in the late afternoon and the wind died down some which made it almost feel warm there for a bit. It was pretty much touch and go there for a while this morning when the temps got down to 7 or lower and that wind was blowing at like 30 mph. I had to go into full burn on the wood furnace and throw logs in like I was a fireman on an old steam engine just to keep the inside temp at about 60 degrees.

With that North wind coming in so strong I finally had to by pass the furnace thermostat and just put the blower on full time. I even had to leave the door cracked a few times to up the oxygen level for more flame even though that greatly reduces the burn time. When I reach that point of cold the only way to keep the fire going at an acceptable level is to check the temperature of the air coming through the vent and feed more wood when it gets a little cool.

I imagine it's a pretty safe bet I am going to have to replace one of the ash grates this next Spring. That kind of heat will eat those thick metal bars down much faster than you might think.

Even with the constant feeding of the wood furnace and checking pipes I managed to get the West and North walls in the mini-cabin completely finished today. I been ripping down the one box of fake wood flooring we couldn't take back and using that as the inner edging around the windows which of course is taking more time but saving Mom a bunch of money. The Wife seems to think the entire main room of the cabin is looking like a 1970's era trailer and I hafta admit she is kinda right LOL.

Oh well that's what my Mother wants. She also got to start hanging decorations today as I finished up one whole wall and then the second. That made her day because she is all about hanging the horse and animal knick knacks.

So now as night fell and the wind died down even more the outside temperature is reading 5 degrees but I have managed to get the inside temp up to 70.  That wind is just brutal at temps this low but by looking at the forecast it appears the worst is now over and we survived.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!