Snow

Winter is finally here in Northern Wisconsin.

It came extremely late this year, due to El Nino, which is fine with me. The day time temps have stayed in the 20s and we got our first big snowstorm. My son and husband turned a small hill outside our front door into a sledding hill. They built a cardboard box wall to crash into.

We got to test out our lawn tractor and snow blower attachment. Our property slopes to the south so the extra parking area/turn around spot was not able to get plowed. The tractor got stuck in the heavy wet snow and had to be pulled out with the Jeep.

My son turned 3 and I made him a construction cake. He only wanted the trucks and could careless about the cake. Next year I am just going to make him a donut tower.

We had our first Christmas here too! We roasted a ham and opened gifts.

My son received a toy chainsaw which he is over the moon about. During the heavy snow storm the weight of the snow knocked down a tree onto the sledding hill and he helped my husband buck it.

I received a voucher for rifle training through the Appleseed project. I am very excited to work on my rifle skills. I would love to be able to hunt grouse.

Our tankless water heater arrived!! The home store near us does not carry the wires to install it, so still no plumbed in water. The truck stop I have been taking showers at, their hot water heater broke so I have not been able to shower there. Some friends and (brother on Christmas morning) let me use their shower!

I joined a local moms group that has a meeting and gets together for coffee and moms night out. They also do some volunteer work in the community. Its sort of weird trying to make new friends as an adult, especially if you are a stay at home mom, you really have to get out there and make it happen. I did a painting night and I really enjoyed it. The advertising said "winter landscape on barn wood" I thought it was going to be like a Bob Ross painting event. Instead the instructor wanted us to paint snowmen. I did not want to hang snow men up so I painted a pic of our home in the woods. It was a great time!

Since it's the end of the year I'm reflecting back on 2015. It was in March that my husband applied for the job transfer and got it. Then we sold half of our crap to move into a place in the woods. We totally switched our lives around to live within our means and debt free. We are moving towards more and more personal liberty. My goals for 2016 

- tap maple trees

- start small raised bed gardens 

- remove brush trees and get fruit trees in

- build outdoor pizza oven

- start focusing more on homeschool preschool

- take more personal days for just me

- find a babysitter so I can have some time with my husband

splitting wood

Heating a small home with only fire is a skill that I am constantly adjusting. I mean getting the wood stove at the perfect temp and then maintaining it. We have one of the smallest woods stoves on the market because our place is so small. (360sq.ft.) Growing up having natural gas heat I learned nothing except do not touch the thermostat or dad gets pissed off. With our stove I found I need several sizes of wood split. Small kindling to start the fire, medium logs to get it up to temp and bigger logs to maintain temp.

Also, the arrangement of the logs in the stove is just as important. You have to allow for air flow. I did not understand the concept of the damper so I had to learn about that. I did get this little stove way too hot on Thanksgiving and burned off some paint on the stove pipe and we had to open the windows because it smelled so terrible. All the wood pieces we bought are so big they will not fit in our stove. They have to be split into thirds or fifths. I also learned that these pieces of wood with knots in them totally suck to split.

I do about 75% of the splitting but the knotty chunks I leave did my husband. My back is getting really strong from splitting wood and hauling wood. My son who is 3 also thinks it's fun to pretend he is a logging truck, he has me load him up (1 log) and haul it to the saw mill (front door step). We did pick a wonderful winter to move up here. It's been very mild, consistently in the 30s for highs and just a dusting of snow so far. I must have read too many Little House on the Prairie books because I had visions of us freezing to death out here. Our sleeping area in the loft stays between 60-65 degrees. At first that was pretty cold for sleeping but I have adjusted and sleep wonderfully.

My husband used the remainder of left over boards to start the skirting along the bottom of the house. Normally you need to use skirting that is plastic or some sort of metal like on a mobile home, wood wicks up moisture. We ran out of money so we have to make due with what we have until spring when we can do it properly.

The shower is installed but not plumbed in yet. Neither of us has plumbing experience so there must be some research done before my husband starts that job. So it's still truck stop showers for me. I swear I am going to take the longest shower ever when this thing is up and running. I'm still sad about losing the bathtub. Winter is my prime bathtub reading season.

I made my first batch of soap in Wisconsin! I altered my lard/coffee recipe and added in Shea butter and some fragrance. I'm getting annoyed with the yellow color, so next batch I'm removing the palm oil. I also made peppermint beeswax lip balm. The next thing I make will be body butter. The wood stove is making it pretty dry in here.