Arrival of Autumn

Autumn has surely arrived, and trees have started their transition. Along with the arrival of autumn has come the standard "The school year has started" sickness. When you live around colleges that sickness blows through the community whether you are directly involved in the academic life or not. I am not, but got a light dose of what ever has been leveling everyone in the area. For that reason, today's post will be a bit off I suspect.

Splitting Wood

It's that time of year again. You know, the time of year when there's things you should have done over the summer but it was so hot, and winter was so far away, and so many other things to do. Remember those times when winter was far away? Well, now it's not, and I still have a vast pile of trees to buck and split.

That's about half of the pile of trees that has been sitting behind the studio long enough to show up on Google Maps. The Lady of the House's father was kind enough to come up and buck some of the trees for us a bit back, and will be coming up to show me how to properly and safely use a chainsaw to buck trees in the next month or so.

So, on Friday and Saturday I took a few hours and decided to see if I'd lost my skills at splitting firewood. Turns out, as one of my co workers said, it's a lot like riding a bike. You never quite forget, but you definitely aren't as good as you once were, or at least thought you were.

Cooling Your House Without A/C

Not necessarily a Homesteading specific thing, but more of a how to live thing for those who want to reduce their electric bill, and can tolerate some temperature variation. There are a few requirements for this particular method to work out. The first is having a house that has windows that open, as well as having blinds. Preferably good thick blackout style curtains. Second is that the house is well enough insulated that heat transfer takes a good long time. If you've got wind whistling through cracks in your walls you're fairly close to stuck with the outside temperature plus or minus a few degrees. Third is paying attention to the weather. If you have all of these, you can get by without AC and still be comfortable.

"Is There Anything Else I Should Be Asking?"

So in most homesteading situations you will be buying a house. If you've already purchased a house you probably already know this, but it bears mentioning. When you buy a house there will be at least 3 relatively important systems that you are not intimately familiar with. Heat, Water, and Electricity. Make absolutely sure that you get a solid walk through on those systems from the previous home owner, and learn their quirks. This goes beyond the basic learn where the kill switch for your oil furnace is. At the low end, it will keep you from embarrassment. At the high end, it will save your house from major damage or destruction.

What Brings This Up?
Our wood stove is the specific incident that is prompting this particular incident. I've used wood stoves before, many times. In general, wood stoves are very simple devices. That in mind, I didn't bother asking any questions about quirks on the wood stove and I really wish I had. I would have avoided a rather cold few nights, and a bit of embarrassment.