East Pole Journal January 29, 2020

First new firewood of the year.

     Not a whole lot to report, mostly housebound by low temperatures for a couple of weeks now. But after weeks of below zero weather, the temperature yesterday rose to plus 29. It's supposed to be almost that warm today then back down near zero again by the weekend. Enough weather, although I am taking advantage.

Let the woodcutting begin

     Last year because of deteriorating weather I had to leave a couple of weeks earlier than I had planned. As a result I didn't get as much firewood in as I had expected and now I am seeing myself running short this year. I have a supply of seasoned birch but I'm not sure it will last to the end of March, so I have been picking out beetle-killed spruce which should be dry enough to burn. Today I took down a huge one and even got some of it up the house and split. I wanted to at least get it down as I might have to leave to take care of a disaster at the other house. I always leave a little water running to prevent the pipes from freezing, but when I got my electric bill it was half what I usually see and I'm afraid it's because the well pump hasn't been running. A power outage could have killed my flow of water long enough for the pipes to freeze. The landlady went out there yesterday but couldn't make her key work to get inside. She did assure me no water was on the floor anywhere that she could see through the window. So, I had to explain again that there should have been water running out of the kitchen faucet. Back out there today but I can't be sure yet because the Internet is not letting me see my Ring video right now.       Oh, but there are days the medicine does work. When that spruce came down it took a fairly sizable birch with it that has plenty of firewood in it too. Tomorrow I will either be cutting more firewood or driving to town to take care of frozen pipes. So it goes.

Burning the new wood

I split a little bit of what I cut. Plugged in the fancy moisture meter: 19.2 percent moisture. It burns though, but slower and doesn't generate the normal BTUs, at least it feels that way. At any rate it will help me stretch my meager wood pile with some left over for next year. In full firewood mode now.

About that moose

     The pregnant moose has moved on. She hasn't been heard from in the past couple of weeks.

About birds

     Still dozens of chickadees around but this week five redpolls showed up, the first of the year.

Then, yesterday this female hairy woodpecker came by to pick some beetles out of another spruce. I don't want to take that one down because the chickadees roost there and also flee to cover in it when a predator comes around the feeder.

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