Where Did February Go?

... battling freak weather extremes and an underestimation of firewood, that's where!!

We had to deal with days of -40 with high winds, days around zero with lots of snow, days of almost above freezing with blinding sunlight... rinse, lather, repeat. All that cycling made things weird for travel by foot as well as vehicle since the accumulated snow would start melting in the sun, then freeze solid, then get covered with fresh powder which results in thigh-high drifts, ice ledges, bottomless pitfalls and no traction anywhere.

Plus, we never knew what the temps were going to be when we went to bed so had no idea whether to bank the fire (and risk roasting) or let it burn out (and risk freezing). Even in the course of a day we;d see 30-40 degree shifts, which meant lots of small short fires... which strangely burn up more wood than a long burn with a full firebox. Normally we don't get that sort of weather and random heating fluctuations until mid-March, so we ran a little short on firewood (AGAIN!!  Arg!!).

So, off we went trudging through snowbanks in search of more deadites for the woodbin. This combo has a few serious limitations... not only is it difficult to determine where you're going and what's under your feet with any given step, it also means that you can't collect with a vehicle (may be possible with a snowmachine, but we don't have one yet). So, we were stuck dragging a sled of wood through the forest while the sled keeps trying to sink and mire in the snow, and you keep stepping through the hardpack or losing your footing where it's powdery or their are hidden stumps. And, unless you want to completely exhaust yourself, it also means that you can't load up the sled too much or you'll die trying to drag it home. Ultimately, we've found that we can only drag back a sled with 1-1.5 days worth of wood... so this whole process is DAILY (now you know why I'm peeved about the miscalculation!!).

In addition to the wonders of firewood, we did manage to get a few random projects completed (or at least started).

The first was a warming hut for our generator... seriously, it's cold enough at times that the ppor thing won't run... so we built a box out of scrap 2" foam insulation with vents cut out for the exhaust and intakes.

Second, I turned the laminate countertop scrap (the cut out to install the sink) into a makeshift baker's rack for the odd corner next to our new gas range. Eventually, I add some shelves to the frame to store the cast iron that's too heavy to hang, and also some shelves above it to make a hanging potrack for our stainless steel & copper... it'll be soooooooo nice to get all of them out of my limited cabinet space!

I also purchased some battery-operated, self-stick, light-detecting, motion-detecting LED nightlights for our stairwell. The lights are low lumen and angled down, so they don't blind you or wake everyone in the house up whenever you need to go up or down the stairs in the dark (yeah, I've busted my ass a few times on moonless nights!!). They came in a set of 3 so I installed one on each flight and one on the landing, and have been really impressed with how well they're working so far to light up the entire staircase just enough to make things safe. Of course, they still freak Ripley out when she's slinking up and down the stairs at night since they're automatic... poor baby!

I also modeled a storage shelf and desk unit to wrap around the stairwell upstairs, and a utility cabinet to hide and secure the battery bank and water tank on the opposite wall. It would have been easier if we could have purchased a pre-built unit, but with the angled walls in the loft created by the gambrel roof we pretty much have to go custom with everything. Hopefully we can get to those two units sometime this summer, although this summer is going to be focused primarily on the exterior siding and landscaping/garden. (I'll be starting my seedlings this month, so I'll try to do a few posts on our gardening planning for you guys).

We did manage to come up with a workable semi-prebuilt solution for storage shelves down the angled walls on either side of the bed, though. We bought 12' sections of wire shelving in the three sizes that were available (22", 16" and 12") and then made vertical standards for the front from 2x2's screwed directly into the floor and rafters. We had to attach the front of the shelves to vertical standards because we couldn't use the regular shelf supports on the angled wall, and the three sizes allowed us to place a deeper shelf on the bottom, with narrower shelves following the slope... we lucked out and this ended up with all three shelves almost perfectly 18" apart. Instead of the normal "J clips" normally used to attach the back of the shelf on a vertical, we used "U clips" over the back wire that would support the shelf regardless of the wall slope. The wire shelves are also just fleixble enough to bend over the weird waviness created by uneven rafter depths (rough lumber rather than planed), if we'd had to scribe and custom fit plywood shelves to the wall I would have lost my mind!  All-in-all, going with the wire shelving probably saved us around $50 and a day of labor over plywood, so that's a bonus. Anyway, we got the shelves on my side of the bed installed, and will be installing G's when we do the whole winter-to-summer bedding and clothing switch.

While I'd love to have things all done and properly finished (still haven't mudded and painted the walls or trimmed out the windows & doors), I figure it's better to work on weather-proofing, storage, and food production first. Safe, organized and productive first, pretty later :)

Lapdog ????

 

In the mind of a dog there really is no such thing as "too big to be a lapdog".

Not even when they're the same size as the person who's lap they're sitting on :)

Ahh, here's the snow

We got a bit of snow back in October, but after several weeks without snow, with high winds, and with below average temperatures, hardly any of it was left. Here are a few pics I took on the Elliott Hwy during my Fairbanks trip last week, it's definitely not normal to be able to see so much of the grass and trees in December. And we're losing light fast, I barely had enough time to make the drive in during daylight... these pics were taken at NOON on a "sunny" day.

Well, it looks like Mr. Snow finally figured out where he was supposed to be, because we're currently being dumped on. Ripley is in heaven.

And it doesn't look like the snow will be stopping anytime soon:



Screenshot of Wunderground.com Forecast for 12/12/12

It's been snowing since early yesterday morning, and this morning the weather observatory at University of Fairbanks noted a record 24-hour snowfall of 4.1 inches... beating the previous record of 3.0 inches this day back in 1991. The major factor in this winter storm is warmer weather (above zero), as it is too cold to snow at lower negative temperatures.

As a result of the extended period of cold weather without a blanket of insulating snow, river ice depths throughout the area are higher than normal... the ice on the Tanana River at Manley is currently reported at 33 inches.

A Winter's Day

As the days grow shorter and the temperatures drop, we're stuck inside more often and most people assume we'd get cabin fever. Well, G gets a bit of cabin fever, and I get a bit of annoyed at not having any quiet alone time because he and the dog are always stuck inside with me (not sure if that counts as cabin fever or not LOL).

A typical winter day looks like this:

• 8-10a: try to ignore that the freak dog is whining to be let out, one of us eventually gets up to open the door and gets the fire & coffee going
• 10-noon: the other one gets up & we get breakfast going, since the days are short there's no real use getting up before the sun
• Noon-4ish: do the outside chores while we have light. Normally this is firewood-related or shoveling snow, but sometimes it's a trip into Manley or cutting lumber for indoor projects, etc.
• 4-ish: when it starts getting too dark or cold to be outside, we'll either work on the indoor projects, or research/plan future projects, or general housekeeping for a few hours. If it's been a really cold/hard day outside, we'll just veg... G gaming on the XBox/PS3, and me reading or playing a PC game (or napping).
• 9-ish: we'll cook & eat dinner
• 10p & 3a:  "magic hour" when we have unlimited bandwidth on the satellite, so we'll either watch something on Netflix/Hulu (movie or TV), or do any large downloads (like updates, PDF books, or YouTube). If the satellite uplink isn't cooperating, we might watch a DVD, play a game, read, or go to bed early
• 2-4a: Bank the fire and go to bed

Since I'm a chronic insomniac & ultra-light sleeper, I'm usually the one who gets up first (darn dog!!) and goes to bed last. Since G sleeps like the dead, he's usually only the first up if I'm totally exhausted and sleeping really hard.

Likely, we'll have a bit more structure to our days once we get critters since we'll have to go out to give them (non-frozen) water and food, gather any eggs before they freeze solid, milk the goats/sheep, and generally make sure everyone is happy, warm and healthy. We're only planning to overwinter our laying/breeding flock, and don't expect them to produce in the winter... with marginal daylight and the cold, best to give them a break and let them put the majority of their resources into staying warm & alive.

P.S.  And what the %^$* is with the freakin' weather?!?!?  It's been majorly windy and warm (around zero), definitely not normal for late November. At least the snow isn't that deep yet, since it's blowing around at high velocity like a sandblaster and all sorts of stuff on the decks keep getting blown off so we have to hunt for it. Not just light/small stuff either!

Lessons Learned -- Wheelbarrows

Wheelbarrows may be awesome labor-saving devices if you have hard, smooth paths; but we've found that they pretty much suck for muddy, bumpy, rooty, stumpy ground. Especially if it has one of those wheelguard/tip-assist bars at the front like this one:

That little metal bar gets jammed or hung up on everything when you're pushing the wheelbarrow at any angle that allows the back supports to clear any obstacles; and the single wheel in the front makes for a very unstable load on uneven ground... either pushing or pulling. We end up using more energy struggling to maneuver over/around small obstacles while keeping the whole thing upright, and usually tipping over and dumping the load anyway, than we would just hauling stuff around in buckets or dragging it on a sled, tarp or board.

If your landscape isn't a nice stable, flat, relatively hard-packed surface we recommend that you ditch the wheelbarrow and go with a wheeled cart with wide knobbly tires. Two-wheel tilt or 4-wheel wagon styles ultimately work MUCH better than a wheelbarrow... maybe a 3-wheel tricycle-wheelbarrow hybrid would work.

  

Be careful with the tire size! A large skinny tire like those below will probably roll/climb over a obstacle ok, but will dig furrows into snow, mud and mulch... and then you'll be stuck fighting with it again.

So, it looks like we'll be repurposing our two wheelbarrows into vegetable planters in the spring, like these from The Micro Gardener!

Note: I'm not knocking the wheelbarrow and skinny-tired cart, they are perfectly appropriate for barn, lawn & garden chores on smooth, stable surfaces... they just aren't appropriate for more rugged backwoods chores on unstable surfaces.

Early Winter Pics

First "sticking" snow - Mid October 2012

Still sunny enough to cause some daytime melt on the south side.

But still cold enough that the snow hangs in the spruce.

One of many woodpiles waiting to be split.

Evidence of little critters nesting in our toasty brush piles...

Weasel tracks, we're not sure if it's a Least Weasel or an Ermine.

Winter Has Arrived

It's been frosting at night since Labor Day, been below freezing most days since the beginning of the month, and we got snow that stuck last weekend... and last night we got our first below-zero.

Time to drop the linen and stop the grinnin', cuz Winter is here!