The road to our homestead!
There is no question, heating with wood keeps you warm. So warm that most of the time I am sitting here in shorts while I work. I only put on warm clothes when I go outside. My husband always says heating with wood heats him twice, when he is cutting it and carrying it and when it is in the stove heating the house. So true. Our wood stove in the living room is rather big and is great in the real cold time of winter. But this fall has been fairly warm for upstate New York.
I wrote a post in the past called Self Reliance - Today's Topic Is Heating. That post explains more about heating with wood. Of course, there are various ways to heat your home. I really like the wood heat as it warms you immediately, right down to your core. Once you get warm you stay warm. The other types of heat turn on and off. On and off. You get cold and then it finally comes on. I remember well turning my thermostat up till the furnace kicked on. My mother had me do it many times at her house while she was freezing waiting for it to come on. Of course with wood stoves you just may be warmer than you like. So I wear shorts. You could open a window a bit or if you have an enclosed porch you could open the door to that and let it heat up too.
Our forest
We have taken about all the trees we want off our own property for the time being. Now it is just downed wood and dead trees that we are using. We plan on buying some loads of logs in the next few months and letting them season for next year. That way will be easier on my husband as he is working with a crushed elbow and both of his feet have gotten bad. So I would like his work load to lessen. I mean he does jobs for me that I can't do now because of my knees. So if I can help him by buying the logs we will do it.
Firewood
Planning for the winter is just what you do when you live out in the country. Planning by stocking up your food supply, your wood supply, your water supply and of course planning for the snow that will eventually come. For us that means shoveling paths, and keeping it clear enough for hauling in hay for our horses twice a month. We get a lot of snow out here and I am not complaining as the snow helps to keep our water table full for using a lot of water all year long. Horses drink a lot of water daily. I take hot baths in a big claw foot bath tub. I can several times a month. All of that uses water. To live with a shallow well and never have a problem with it having enough water is a good thing.
Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
2 comments:
If anyone can make me miss cold weather, it's you, Katlupe! I don't really miss cold weather at all, but your posts about wood stoves brings back happy memories for me. When Barry and I lived in Virginia, we heated with a big wood stove. There is nothing like the cozy comfort and warmth of sitting by a wood stove on a cold evening!
I just hate being cold. We have a fireplace and usually buy those store bought Duraflame fire logs, but I'm going to try wood logs this winter. I keep the thermostt at 66 or 68 only because the electric bill is so high in the winter. But I defeat the purpose of saving money by lowering the thermostat because I get out my electric heater and sit right by it while I work.
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