Wood Diaries

Last winter was long and hard. As a consequence, we burned about five cords of wood rather than our usual three-plus. I wrote last spring about some of the fun snow sport antics  that required. I usually have two winter’s worth of wood on hand so everything gets about two summers’ worth of drying. With short summers, this ensures dry wood to burn (I usually work with 16-inch pieces and split it as we use it.)

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Snowshoe Express – Wood

We’ve had a long winter, and we have very deep snow. In addition, in working from home for many hours each week we’ve burned more wood than we normally to. So we’ve run out of the best of it. The wood shed is empty, and next year’s stash was buried under mountains of snow. Fortunately, I covered some split stuff that was piled outside the shed with a tarp, and I was able to crawl in under a snow cave and pull some of that out. Our heated garage dries this wood out in a couple weeks, so as long as I plan ahead, we’re good.

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Stormageddon

I remember when I first learned about global warming (many years ago, now), that a main prediction was that we would see more frequent weather extremes. Talk about predictions coming true with a bang. These days the news seems to perpetually include unprecedented weather events around the world. The periodic unseasonably warm spell—at these latitudes—is okay from time to time, but I know I’d prefer not to live through the big stuff. As if we had a choice…

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Tamales

Rose and I enjoy making tamales over the holidays. Some of our fondest memories of traveling in Mexico in December are having tamales, fruit, and hot chocolate for breakfast or lunch. By making large batches of tamales and freezing single-meal packs, we’re able to enjoy tamales like this on occasional weekends throughout the year.

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