Let there be heat

Yesterday our wood stove conked out. It filled the house with smoke instead of sending it up the chimney. Smoke was even oozing (can smoke ooze?) out of every little crack and crevice in the stove. It wasn't heating, and we were quickly reduced to opening doors and windows to vent the place. Did I mention it got down to negative 30 degrees up here last night? Ole' Murphy was prosecuting us to the full extent of his law, I can tell you that.

We got a roaring fire going in the fireplace, which helped. Our fireplace has a blower built in so that once the firebox gets heated, warm air can be circulated. It was really nice within about 5' of the fireplace, and the rest of the house stayed just above 50 degrees. We figured it was also a great time to run the self clean cycle on our oven (500 degrees for three hours or so).

Once we had a little heat in the place we tried to tackle the stove. It just started smoking really bad, do we have a green log in there? We took all the burning wood out of it and threw it in the snow outside. Nope, smoke still coming into the house. There's a lot of ash in there, maybe it would breathe better if we cleaned it out. I dug a trench in a snow bank and took 8 big buckets-full of ash out. Nope, still too smoky. Ah, there is a door for removing the ash that falls down the chimney. Took another bucket of ash from there. Nope, still smoky. Well, let's sleep on it, thank goodness for down comforters.

At 5AM this morning, we were awake and decided to try using the shop vac to clean out the horizontal portion of the chimney that goes out the back of the stove. (To do this, I had to get the generator to start in -30 degrees and then find the shop vac out in the garage. Brrrr!!!!) There was about an inch of ash there, but removing it didn't fix anything. However, while shining a light around in there, I saw that there was no opening in the back for the smoke to go up. I got a pole and tested this and confirmed that there seemed to be a blockage.

At 8:01AM we started calling chimney sweeps. It must be the off season for them because of the 4 in the phone book, two were out of town. One was too far away and didn't want to drive all the way up here, but the 4th guy was willing. He got here as the sun came out blazing brightly in complete defiance of the temperature. He agreed that there appeared to be a blockage and hopped up onto the roof with his brushes and poles. There was quite a bit of accumulated ash and creosote in the chimney, so it needed cleaning, for sure. However, at a certain point, his brush got stuck. He hit something metal. A glance inside the wood stove revealed he was banging on the horizontal pipe from above. He figured out that the horizontal pipe had somehow gotten pushed back into the chimney too far and had become closed off by the back wall of the chimney. It is a good thing he was a small man, for he was able to climb halfway into our stove and get a vicegrip clamped onto the pipe. He pulled it out a ways and lit a piece of paper. The smoke went up!!!

Now we have a very clean wood stove and chimney and a nice warm fire going. We stole the big coals out of the fireplace to jump-start the wood stove and now it is warming up in here. My nose is still cold, but there is no longer any frost on my window. We were able to settle out of court with Murphy for about $150, which could have been much worse.

The Wind also Blows

Today it is snowing ... on only half of the ranch. The snow is coming down outside my West-facing window, but not outside my North-facing window. If anyone can explain that to me I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, I'll tell you about yesterday's weather, which wasn't so much strange and frightening.

The wind roared through our little valley yesterday. It wasn't just gusty, it was constant and very strong. From my office window I watched trees bending at unnatural angles. A rabbit hutch, which took three strong guys to move, was casually flipped over on its roof. The same for the goose shelter. Roofing was ripped off the small barn, and tarps were torn from hay stacks. However, the biggest issue, by far, was the downed trees.

I watched with guts twisting as more and more trees fell. Oh, there went a fence in the Upper Little Barn pasture. Ah, another one blocking the driveway. By the time I finished work for the day, 8-10 trees had fallen across our driveway. I had to clear these before I could take food to the Middle 20 and Back 20. Before I could do that, I noticed that there were too many black horses over by the young boys herd.

Ryder and Blackie were in the Goat Barn pasture while we fixed fences knocked down last week. The fences got fixed, but I hadn't gotten around the moving them back yet. Well, the fence that borders the property to the South was almost completely destroyed by several fallen trees, so Ryder and Blackie decided to go exploring. I got them put back in Ryder's pasture (Lower Little Barn) and grabbed my chainsaw.

I lost track of time, but it must have been a little over an hour later, I straightened up, looked around and realized I had cleared enough of the driveway for a vehicle to pass. It was well past dusk, but I could still see to walk around so I quickly got the feeding done. By the time that was done, it was pretty much full dark. I was able to see by the light on our little John Deere lawn tractor (which we use to haul hay around for feeding) that there had been a few trees down along Mill Creek Road, but that other people had cut and cleared them. When I got to the little road that leads to The Cabin, I noted at least 4 large trees that fell from the Middle 20 to the Back 20, taking out fences on both sides of the road. They will have to wait for another day.

The feeding was done, but unfortunately I couldn't go in yet because I didn't have any firewood in the house or on the porch. Luckily I knew just where to go for some fresh fallen timber, some of which was even already dead and dry. I won't complain about my various aches and pains, I'll just say I slept really well last night. Today after work I will try to survey more of the damage while there's daylight.

Cutting down trees for firewood

We finally got all our hay in for the winter, and it is stacked high and tarped down. We should be able to manage feeding through the winter as the piles are conveniently located. That leaves fencing and firewood as our two top jobs. We are building jack-leg fence, so now both of our top priorities require the ability to handle a chainsaw well.

I learned how to handle a chainsaw from my friends and neighbors. They taught me the right and wrong way to drop a tree, and how to do so safely. For those of you who don't have the benefit of Curry, Bob, Jarred, and Pete, and Aud, here's a great set of instructional videos I found online.

http://www.expertvillage.com/interviews/felling-trees.htm

Enjoy.