Got a little snow – about an inch or so – night before last. That translates to about .1” so not much moisture out of that. But, we got about an inch or so of rain last week so it’s good to see the moisture. It has been very dry so this also helps a little. We have some more on the way this week. Boo.
With the rain I had a look at the basement and found no water came in! My efforts on adjusting the drainage seems to be working but I still have more I want to do. After modifying it more last week I think it’s really helped even more. Granted, the ground is very dry, but getting that water away from the house is always important and seems to be helping with the issue.
With the snow on the ground yesterday, I decided to just burn the brush pile in the back yard. I know…I wasn’t going to burn it and pollute but it was going to be much easier plus I am not quite ready to rent a trailer yet. With it being so dry I didn’t know if the county was allowing burning so taking advantage of the snow was a spur of the moment decision.
It really ended up being much easier to burn it as I had a pretty difficult time trying to pull limbs and brush out to re-stack it to burn better; it would have been way too much work to untangle it to load into a trailer. As it was, I still ended up babysitting the burn for about four hours, constantly rearranging.
Today I pulled the wood stove out to clean the pipe and I’m glad I did. It was pretty built-up with creosote. It wasn’t too bad to do; mainly it was just tedious and not as dirty as I expected. I feel better about it and have a fire going right now to celebrate!
I went out to have a better look at the repairs I need to do to keep the birds out. Might be somewhat of a pain in the ass to fix but I still need to get it taken care of ASAP. It will probably involve having to get on the roof which means I have to wait for warmer weather. In the meantime, after it dries out and the ladder doesn’t sink in the mud, I can get up for a closer look and figure out what needs done. I really hope I don’t have to take the gutters off. Not interested in doing that.
When I take the dogs out at night I use a headlamp to keep an eye on them. In the beam I can see all sorts of crap floating in the air. My eyes are really watering so I’m thinking it’s allergies & dust causing my misery. I’ve used eye wash, eye drops and washed my face but still no luck stopping it.
I was hoping next week it warms up some so I can cook outside, but it’s supposed to be colder. I want to cook my lamb on my charcoal hibachi and that’s not really very indoor friendly.
Or, I could cook them in the wood stove! You may laugh and think I’m crazy, but I’ve done it before when a cookout got rained out. Some friends came over and we went off-reading. Afterwards we roasted brats in the wood stove.
That’s all for today. See you next time.
