Cold, Cold, Cold

I waited for things to warm up this morning before I went out to milk. It was twenty one degrees below zero Fahrenheit when I did milk.

Milk pails have a have a habit of reminding me of the temperature while I am out there.
At about ten degrees, stainless steel on bare hands gets cold quick.
At about five degrees, there's a momentary adhesion as any surface moisture flash freezes to the pail's handle.
At negative twenty, there's a little epidermis left behind stuck to the handle when the hand is pulled off.

This morning, there was hoar frost in the hair of the goats when they came into the milking parlor. The milk parlor is just an unheated shed off the back of the barn, so it is not like it is warm, though.

The upside of cold weather like this, it's real dry. I can walk around outside in wool socks and my crocks as long as I stick to the packed paths. I think the crocks are just as warm as my rubber boots in this situation. In March, it will warm up and be much too wet and cold for crocks.

Melting out

We are well into the spring melt. Daytime temps are getting into the 50s and night time temps are in the 20s. We have melted out in areas that get good sun. Some years the shadowed areas might have snow until late May, but I don't think we will this year. It's been a light winter for us. We had warm temps into the middle of December and we are melting out in the begining of March. I like winter, really cold temps keep things dry and easy work. It's the in between times when the humidity comes up with the temperature and the mud thaws that feel uncomfortable. Humid air at 45 degrees feels a lot colder than dry air at 5 degrees. To me at least.


When the snow melts out, all the grass is layed down and with the foliage gone, it highlights all the short cuts we might have taken last fall. It's a good chance to find forgotten items before the rush of spring growth. It's easy for me to get motivated to clean things up after the winter low time.


I got the tractor out and turned the compost pile. I don't pay a lot of attenntion to the compost over the winter. But with the warmer temps, I wanted to get things moving along. Rollong the pile remixes the material with the compost organisms, airates it and moves the material that had been on th outside of the pile to the inside. This remixing puts the right pieces together for active decomposition back in the middle where it will have a chance to heat back up.


I have put a tarp over the north side of the pile. The north side doesn't get as much sun, the tarp will help keep it warm. It will also keep some of the spring rain off it. Rain will cool the pile and too much rain will slow down the decomp. Grabbing a handful of compost, I should be able to squeeze and see water glisten between my fingers. But water running when I squeeze signals too much water. Right now, I am most worried about too much water because it will cool the pile. As the spring warms up, I'll keep an eye on it. If the pile starts to get dry, I'll remove the tarp or make a double peak to form a V to catch and retain water in the pile. I did see some steam come off this pile, but most of the pile was pretty cool. I probably should have had the tarp on all winter. But I didn't have any tarps available earlier. But less than optimal decomp over the winter won't be that much of a problem. We won't need this compost until October or November, so there is plenty of time to bring it along.

Our other big pile that I started early last summer is pretty much ready now. It is well mixed and the bits have mostly broken down to unrecognizeable peices. The larger wood chips are the only thing still identifiable. When the market garden has dried out, we'll use this compost to build up the beds.


Another spring task is to deal with brush piles. We will probably burn the piles inside the market garden. The ones on the outside I am more like to take to my brush dump where I am letting it decompose on their own.

Moderately Snowy Winter

That's a three foot stake I used for laying out a line last summer. That's the top 6 inches or so.

Remnants from buckets left in the goat house overnight. When it is negative twenty over night it is really important to take out fresh liquid water a couple times a day.

On a really snowy winter the snow is continuous from the roof to the ground. We aren't as deep as we were last year, and not as deep as some of the blogs I read. But we do have a good snow cover. I think it is good for the land.

We burned a lot of wood in January. We are a little further through it than I would like. But the weather has started to warm. We haven't bothered to light a fire the last two days. Strong sunlight has kept us warm. If we go down to burning a fire only 4 or 5 days a week, the wood will stretch a lot further.

I think we have enough dry oak and cherry in the back to make it through till warmer weather. Last weekend I did cut a dead birch I've had my eye on, though. It was falling into the path to the upper field, not far from the house and all downhill. I could toboggan it down to the house with a minimum of pulling.

It's a pain burning the birch because it isn't dry. It has to come in and thaw before it goes on the fire. And it needs to be a hot fire already. But if there is a good bed of coals, it seems like the birch gets the oven hotter than usual, not sure why. Maybe the higher moisture content helps transfer the energy to the oven walls? The oven thermometer pegs at 500+ when we are burning the birch.

It will be time to cut next years firewood soon. If it is cut and stacked in the spring and under cover for the summer it will be well dried for next winter. I'll do a lot less damage to the ground cutting while it is frozen. It's a lot easier to see what I am doing while the foliage is off the trees. Wearing my protective gear in the cool spring temps is a lot less irritating than summer heat. It can be annoying to have to go everywhere on snow shoes. But the snow cover also helps lift logs above the dirt and protect the saw. And now is when I have the time. There are other things that can only be done when the earth is thawed and the growing season has begun.

Winter has arrived here also

Looking around at blogs, a lot of people are talking about winter having arrived. It is here too. -10 F this morning at 7:30, no idea how cold it got. We have more than two feet of fresh snow over the weekend. And tonight there might be freezing rain to top it off.

I like to leave the snow on the stock panel structures as insulation. But with the recent fiasco with the garden green house, I didn't risk it. I cleared the snow off each with a push broom. Which is not hard, but it can get deep on the backside.

But the wood is all stacked and dry. What a difference from last year. Last year we were burning birch that I cut from standing dead trees late last year. I was hoping the standing dead would be a little drier than green wood. And I am sure it was, but not enough. Those birch logs were frozen and we tried all winter to have them warmed up and dried out a little before we put them in the stove. This years wood is mostly oak that I cut early last spring. Some of it was standing dead, others were nuisance trees that would threaten the new fence. But more than anything, they have been under cover all summer and are dry dry, ready to go in the firebox. If the fire dies down, you can just stick these logs in and they catch. Not like last year, trying to nurse a fire back up with tomorrow mornings kindling. A little preparation prevents poor performance as I have been told.



Certainly glad I fixed the snow blower prior to this weekend. I did clear a lot of snow. I have been known to put things off on occasion. Just lucky on this one, I guess.

Snowblower repair

That's a new friction wheel on my snow blower. The snow blower has been struggling along with the old friction wheel for the end of last year and the first snowstorm of this year. Considering how worn the old one was, it was doing pretty good.

The friction wheel sits against a spinning plate and that is what delivers power to the wheels. The plate moves in and out to effect a clutch. The friction wheel slides on it's axel. As the friction wheel slides further from the center of the plate, the friction wheel spins faster. This gives the snowblower an infinitely variable transmission. It's a neat and effective even if inherently wearing. The closer the friction wheel is to the center, the smaller the radius it is spinning on, the more the rubber wheel is stressed and eventually torn.

This is the old friction wheel. About a 1/4 inch of rubber is worn off all the way around. It was only sticking out past the metal rim in places. Like I said, I was impressed it did as well as it did. There were little bits of rubber everywhere inside the "transmission" housing. This is the original friction wheel and has lasted since May of 1997. I am not unhappy with it. Simple maintence like this can be rewarding. No manuals involved. Just look at it, take an educated guess and start removing bolts. Stop when it is fixed and reverse. Shade tree mechanics version of lather, rinse and repeat.


This is a 12 or 13 year old 9 horse power 2 stage snowblower sold under the name White. It's really made by MTD, one of the few remaining manufactures of snow blowers. I am really happy that it has lasted as long as it has. It is not a premium machine. But, it saves me a lot of shoveling and means I don't need to do any plowing. It is a great machine for the use I put it to. I don't really have a lot of area to clear. Our driveway has parking for seven cars but is only one car length deep off the narrow town road. We need a path around the barn to the milking shed, over to the goat house, past the woodshed and to the backdoor. The path is probably 300 feet. And the path has to squeezes through gates, past gardens, etc. Bigger equipment would be tough. The tecumseh engine is like new even if the sheet metal looks old. The fact that a little maintenance keeps it going strong is gratifying.

It's coming, but it's not here yet

The other day I was brimming with optimism and hope. I haven't lost entirely, but let's just say my cup is no longer running over.



















We went through a spate of warm weather, temps as high as 32. The snow was melting, the walks were clear. Some days we didn't even bother to light a fire in the kitchen. This week, weather came back with a vengence. We got a a pretty good storm that dropped heavy thick snow. Folks were stuck in the driveway, I delayed travel. This morning it was negative 17 outside the kitchen window.



















There was a lot of shoveling to be done. Here's a shot of the aftermath of roof slough comeing down on a freshly shoveled path out the back door. More shoveling to be down. Luckily, I had already shoveled last nights slough. Otherwise there would have been easily three times as much snow to clear.


That's where it falls from, hence all the snow dust in the air...

Iced in

It's not an unusual condition here, but there is a pretty thick coating of ice outside. Some thing we deal with. It weighs down limbs and wires and tools. It coats winshields. Somtimes it is pretty, sometimes damaging but always cold.

I had to pull my wife's car out of the driveway the other day. We hadn't driven it in a week or more and the snow built up under it and around it to the point that it couldn't claw it's way out. Same thing happened to the van but over a longer period. To get it out I jacked up each of the drive wheels and put a length of 2X6 under the tires. It bridged the pocket in the ice that the tires where trapped in and gave me enough traction to muscle my way out. It was actually a pretty simple solution and was quick. I'll have to file that on away.

There were deep depressions left behind in the ice, perfect molds of the tire tread. The van can get stuck on a flat if it is icy, just the nature of no weight in the back...