Friday, January 8, 2010

Flame retardent firewood and other happenings

You ever just get that one piece of wood that will NOT catch no matter what you do? It's not green, it split fairly easily, it's not wet or cold... it just will not catch fire for love or money?! Well we got a whole log like that and it's driving us crazy... just sits there in the firebox and glows, producing no flame and no heat. And it's all mixed in with the flammable stuff so we can't just put it back outside and have done with it. **sigh**

We had a minor warm front this week, and it was hovering just above zero; but now the temps are going back down and the wind has picked up. It's not really that cold, only -27, but the wind chill and low humidity are brutal. It's the type of weather where your eyelashes and nostrils freeze together the minute you get outside. You can feel all the moisture in your lungs freezing up and getting sucked dry... it actually burns to breathe. It's the combination that's making it so harsh.

We're still progressing on our plans for the "Shanty" as well as the "Big House" and hoping to get a reasonable break in the weather so we can get into Fairbanks to do some equipment shopping. Still haven't gotten too much site exploration done as the snow is up past our knees which makes hiking in the bush just a tad treacherous -- especially for super-clumsy girl here! The delay isn't too horrible now that we've switched plans, since we're not as pressed to scout out building timbers before Breakup. Once the weather turns, we'll have plenty of time to go trudging through the trees and mud looking for a building site before it's actually warm or dry enough to start working again.

For now, we're just focusing on keeping warm and keeping enough firewood stocked to keep the stove going... everything else can wait. We made the lifestyle change to be lessed stressed and hurried, not more :D

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