The First Very Wet Snow of the Season

There’s been a bunch of hoopla all week long about a snow storm that’s supposed to hit today. Even on intellicast.com I read two weather alerts. They both told me there was supposed to be 3-6 inches of snow by 4pm. Well, it’s 3:26 and we’ve got nothing. Perhaps a dusting on some wet roads.

I took those pictures on my way to Madison this morning. We ran out of our 48 eggs and I needed more. While I was driving, it was actually snowing and if you look closely, you may be able to see a flake.

I decided to run out to the store because the power went out at the house. There are some gusty winds and I suspect a tree landed on some wires somewhere. That’s what usually happens around here.

When I got back to the house with the groceries, the power was still out. Since I had made a nice toasty fire this morning, I thought it would be rather cool to cook the eggs on top of the wood stove. I did and boy was that neat. How far we’ve come as a people. Almost full circle. I now have to look up good vegetarian chili recipes because I’d like to simmer that on the stove all day. Hey, since the fire’s already going, right?

The power came back on a little while ago. It was only out for a few hours.

Before I left this morning and before the power failed us, I looked out the window. I was surprised to see Sam sitting in his truck in our driveway. He was just sitting there waiting for me to notice him. After I went outside to see what he was up to, I asked how long he was sitting there. He told me just a few minutes. He wanted help unloading the second load of wood in a few days he brought me. Here’s a picture of what he’s given me this week.

The wood is white pine and as you can see, it’s basically lumber scraps. What I like to do is cut the scraps up log length and split them if need be. Then, I stack them in the garage to dry. I already have a pretty decent sized pile cut and stacked from what he and his father gave me over the summer. I’m not going to turn down this wood because pine is really great to burn in the wood stove, especially on cool days when I don’t need to be fully committed to an all day fire. You know, something just to take the chill off. I can also mix the pine in with my hard woods as a supplement over the winter. Word of caution: if you want to burn pine, be sure it’s totally dry. Wet pine causes creosote to build up in your chimney and we all know what happens after that. Also, just for fun, clean your chimney a few times a year. Ours is only about 10 feet tall and straight down, so it’s an easy task.

I’m waiting for this snow to happen. I have jiu-jitsu class tonight and if there’s no snow on the ground, I’ll go. If there is, I have to weigh the danger versus my will to brave it. We’ll see. Update: class has been cancelled. Apparently, there is snow somewhere.