Welcome Home

Lots and lots of more snow. Our front door still welcomes anyone who wishes to make the journey.

The Tractor benefited from a night in our neighbor's heated shop -- all the snow/ice has melted off, but not for long! Here are some additional pics of our white world. Our low one morning this week was negative 30. Still would have been below freezing if 60 degrees warmer.

Depth of winter

We've received about 15 inches of snow since Tuesday. More in the forecast for Monday. The tractor did some great work this week to get us plowed out and sanded. Here's the entrance to Hardwood Hermitage after the latest round of winterization.

Our wood supply remains excellent, even after our cold spells this winter. Here's a picture of some future biomass heat, slated to be part of the 2016-17 burning season.

We had a great solar day on Monday, then nothing to end out the month. Temps tomorrow morning could hit 20 below. Hunkered down and with a fire roaring, we don't seem to mind!

A fox hunts on cold morning

We were below zero again this morning. A fox was out hunting in the early light. It covered a lot of ground, and even pounched on the snow a few times, trying to find breakfast.

In praise of wood heat

The wood stove has come through again. Today is the coldest day since last February. We were at about 20 below zero before sunrise. Most of the wood we're burning today is paper birch that was split more than two years ago. Does it take off when placed on a nice bed of coals!

Last walk of 2014

Happy New Year! Here are a few early winter pics from Hardwood Hermitage, taken on walks each of the last two days.

The last photo is a young oak that found an opening in the forest. The sun the tree received today was quite deceptive -- windy and cold. Like many other young oaks, this one has benefited from brush cutting.

Almost Win-tah

We've had over two feet of snow since our mid-November post. A persistent low pressure system has kept us cloudy for nearly 10 days, dropping an inch here and an inch there. It's not even warm enough to melt or slide off a bit of snow off the solar panels. Thanks to nice sun in early December, though, we're ahead of last year's pace for the month. Here are a few pics showing what Autumn (know as Almost Win-tah up here) looks like sometimes.

This interesting picture was taken before most of our snow. A red maple was the target of a hungry beast, undoubtedly a moose based on how high the pulled bark was on the tree.

First snow

About an inch of snow fell overnight, our first of the season.