Monday, January 31, 2011

Storm’s a-comin’ this way

Just looked at the local weather report and it looks like we may miss the brunt of the ice but we’re still expecting up to 4” of snow between tonight & tomorrow. 
Having survived our first ice storm back in January of ‘09, I’m not going to take any chances and have loaded up the front porch with firewood.

I normally don’t like to keep that much fuel on the porch (wooden porch, log house & all), but if we really do get hit with ice, it’s not going to be an easy task to haul firewood.  We keep our wood piles about 150’ away from the house.  Normally not a long haul, but if it becomes an ice rink that will be a very long & difficult jaunt.
I’ve got several weeks of grain in the barn for the goats, chickens & mule.  The hay is either in the barn or under tarps.  I’ve got plenty of buckets / containers to store animal water.  Paul is going to top off the car with gas and get extra fuel for the generators.  Found where the Coleman fuel is for the camp stove.  Checked on our store of lamp oil.  Pantry is full. 

I am also going to make sure I do some of the "other" preparing things that I didn't realize we'd need to do until that last storm.  Things like doing the laundry, doing the dishes, making sure everyone gets a hot shower, vacuuming all the rugs, baking bread & cookies and making sure that the rechargeable batteries and cell phones are actually charged.
Well, got to go make some bread & cookies now.  That’s always a good idea, impending ice storm or not.

2 comments:

  1. Just wondering about your firewood. I see its not split, is that how you burn it as unsplit logs and how many cords do you use a year?

    Mike

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  2. Actually, most of what we use is either smaller pieces or split. The picture I took yesterday was from a tree that was downed by the ice storm in '09 and was really dry, so I didn't bother splitting it, mostly because that stuff was just sawed up that weekend and I didn't have time and wanted to get it on the porch before the weather got it wet.

    I'm totally guessing on this one, but I think we go through two, maybe three cords of wood. But we're still "new" to the wood-burning & cutting stuff so we've just been making smaller stacks here & there (or wherever the tree fell).

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