Winter is Coming
Since moving up to this property, we have a daily ritual of watching the sun set over the distant mountains. It's a great way to reflect on the day and what we are grateful for. What was striking is watching how the sun sets a little more to the left each day. A reminder that soon we will be moving from Fall into Winter.
Being surrounded by the woods and mountains I am much more aware of our place in nature. Of course nature has always been there but when we were living in suburbia, nature was more background noise for me instead of the 'in your face' presence that it is here. I love hearing a bird song that is unfamiliar or the rustling of vegetation as some woodland creature makes it way through the property. Although once we begin to grow fruits and vegetables I may feel very differently about those woodland animals!
With a bird bath in place and a couple of bird feeders up, we've begun to see a vast variety of birds, many of which I have no idea what they are. We definitely have bird identification homework!
This week the temperatures are expected to range from the low 30s to the mid 50s. With snow predicted in the mountains it was time to stop with the organizing from unpacking and take time to prepare for the colder, wetter weather coming. So yesterday we spent time cleaning out the gutters, draining all of the outside faucets, setting up the heater in the pump house to prevent the pipes from freezing and stacking firewood. All novel activities right now because they're so new to us.
It's been raining all day here today and the prediction is rain/snow continuing through tomorrow afternoon. Tonight the air outside is cold enough to see your breath and having not turned on the furnace yet we decided to try out the wood stove for the first time. That alone has made the main part of house wonderfully warm. However Peter just went to one of the rooms away from the stove and shouted that he'll probably be starting another wood stove fire in the morning.
With that said, we haven't been here long enough to cut and cure our own wood and although the previous owners left some cured logs it's probably not enough to get us through the winter. Sure we could turn on the furnace but where's the fun in that. This is pretty close to my version of camping! As some of you know, roughing it for me is waiting 45 minutes for room service! But back to the topic at hand of how to get more firewood. Hmmm. We would need some trees, probably a chainsaw and a handsome guy wearing a flannel shirt, blue jeans and kevlar chaps. Well, I gotta go. There's plenty of trees to take down but we don't own enough flannel shirts to cut that much wood. Do you think Nordstroms will have any flannel shirts in stock? Jk!