Hunkering down

The cold that I was sorta-hoping to avoid is coming. Weather report says down to -32C by Wednesday, and we'll approach that tonight. The outside water tap was frozen this morning, it was thawed by noon so I fixed the angle of the inside pipe (the frost-free taps require a certain angle inside and mine gets wonky sometimes) and brought in several buckets of water for tomorrow morning, which should be much colder.

The stove is running well. I took the door in to get the gasket re-replaced; I'd tried to do it earlier this fall and apparently had just replaced the previous air leak with a new air leak. Now the fire is much more controllable and I feel comfortable running it as hot as I'm supposed to at the beginning of a burn; this means that so far the woodstove room has been in the high 20C range and the upstairs has been steady 22-24C. Plus when it burns hot at the beginning it's cleaning the glass instead of just creosoting it up. I remember why I loved this stove; it's a workhorse. Also one of the most efficient woodstoves on the market and turns a surprisingly small amount of wood into a surprisingly large amount of heat. This chimney just needs to hold me through till spring, though apparently there's not a lot of insulated chimney to be had right now with COVID and how it's affecting shipping/manufacturing in China.

My ridiculous collection of tomato seeds is slowly assembling. I pretty much have my super short-season corns here. The potatoes I dug this summer all started sprouting as soon as the wood stove cranked up this time around so I need to see what I can do to slow them down, they have awhile to wait until soil. I've been reading my way through Carol Deppe's books on small-scale plant breeding. It's almost time to start peppers and artichokes.

Every time I so much as look at the couch Whiskey the cat runs towards it hoping for petting. He wants hours of attention a day. I'm using it as boundary-setting practice because he doesn't hold it against me when I say no.

I'm simultaneously apprehensive about the end of the pandemic - I don't want to work from the office and didn't even before and I'm very much enjoying a lack of travel - and a little concerned at how even my body's ability to self-regulate seems to be ebbing. As always I think I'd be fine if I could cut the connection to people more thoroughly, or dive in a little closer, but I am getting the worst parts of most people and because work is keeping set hours to "help our mental health" I don't get to go outside when it's light much and actually get things done. There are people I'm looking forward to seeing, or at least to being in their presence again. They aren't all the people I expected, though maybe I didn't really have expectations on that one.

These weekends with Tucker are precious. The moments when I'm present enough to pet the dogs, sort the seeds, or write are precious.

It's a bit of a slog, but things keep moving forward.

Hunkering down

The cold that I was sorta-hoping to avoid is coming. Weather report says down to -32C by Wednesday, and we'll approach that tonight. The outside water tap was frozen this morning, it was thawed by noon so I fixed the angle of the inside pipe (the frost-free taps require a certain angle inside and mine gets wonky sometimes) and brought in several buckets of water for tomorrow morning, which should be much colder.

The stove is running well. I took the door in to get the gasket re-replaced; I'd tried to do it earlier this fall and apparently had just replaced the previous air leak with a new air leak. Now the fire is much more controllable and I feel comfortable running it as hot as I'm supposed to at the beginning of a burn; this means that so far the woodstove room has been in the high 20C range and the upstairs has been steady 22-24C. Plus when it burns hot at the beginning it's cleaning the glass instead of just creosoting it up. I remember why I loved this stove; it's a workhorse. Also one of the most efficient woodstoves on the market and turns a surprisingly small amount of wood into a surprisingly large amount of heat. This chimney just needs to hold me through till spring, though apparently there's not a lot of insulated chimney to be had right now with COVID and how it's affecting shipping/manufacturing in China.

My ridiculous collection of tomato seeds is slowly assembling. I pretty much have my super short-season corns here. The potatoes I dug this summer all started sprouting as soon as the wood stove cranked up this time around so I need to see what I can do to slow them down, they have awhile to wait until soil. I've been reading my way through Carol Deppe's books on small-scale plant breeding. It's almost time to start peppers and artichokes.

Every time I so much as look at the couch Whiskey the cat runs towards it hoping for petting. He wants hours of attention a day. I'm using it as boundary-setting practice because he doesn't hold it against me when I say no.

I'm simultaneously apprehensive about the end of the pandemic - I don't want to work from the office and didn't even before and I'm very much enjoying a lack of travel - and a little concerned at how even my body's ability to self-regulate seems to be ebbing. As always I think I'd be fine if I could cut the connection to people more thoroughly, or dive in a little closer, but I am getting the worst parts of most people and because work is keeping set hours to "help our mental health" I don't get to go outside when it's light much and actually get things done. There are people I'm looking forward to seeing, or at least to being in their presence again. They aren't all the people I expected, though maybe I didn't really have expectations on that one.

These weekends with Tucker are precious. The moments when I'm present enough to pet the dogs, sort the seeds, or write are precious.

It's a bit of a slog, but things keep moving forward.