This morning at 4:30am it was 40 degrees F. outside. Now, at 11:56am it is 34 degrees, raining and blechy yucky out.
Not only that, but Frank left for Phoenix this early morning and will be away the next few days of this numbing weather. We went through nearly all of our wood this past weekend with the ice storm. The weather outlook last week, for now and the next few days wasn’t so bad. But since the ice storm came through the weather update for this current week is bad. We needed wood. So Frank did get wood yesterday, but only put it over the fence. He was in a hurry, it was late. But there it was, getting wet as it drizzled overnight. So this morning I have the two boys getting the wood on the deck and it is no fun. It’s numblingly cold and that’s hard work to do without gloves. It was supposed to be closer to 40 this morning, even going with yesterdays forecast, but instead it’s just a few degrees above freezing, and a “feels like” temp of 28 degrees. That’s cold and add in the absolute wettness I think it’s colder feeling actually with the moving wood job.
And then can you guess how easy it is to burn that wood?
If steaming could make me warm that’d be nice, but it doesn’t help my toes. Just my head. :veryshocked:
[I mean, getting riled about something “unlocks” something in my brain and gives me a bit of motivational energy, at least, if not warmth to my actual body.]
The fire eventually got hot enough to burn nicely, but it was hard work getting that to happen. I’ve had to have 5 or 6 pieces of wood in there at all time, at least three on the bottom over whatever embers are there, in a stage of burning, with two or three “wet” pieces above, drying out and starting to burn on the edges and push water out of the big old soggy thangs.
At times in the first few hours I had to roll up newspaper and strategically place that in and amongst the fiery logs. I do this with a full thin section of the daily paper, at least three sheets, if not more (that would be 6 pages, or really that would mean twelve [since it’d be front-to-back print] pages) rolled tight–but sort of loosely, on the diagonal, then shoved under the grate, or snuggled between logs, to light and get a hot fire going. It helps get wood going that is smoking, but not burning. It gets embers under that area to really glow and throw off heat for burning wood. It’s similar to using The Bellows, which I have such a tool, but it’s more useful for getting something really burning that will last, but go away as well fairly fast.
Using that diagonal newpaper technique still does require the use of The Bellows at times. In any case, they are fun to use. 😉
How it’s going now is that I just have to spend a lot more time with the fire. Wetter wood has to burn to create the embers for the following wet logs [just as any wood has to do for any following wood in the first place, only moreso important if it’s all wet], and if it’s damp and wet it needs to be HOT in there. So if I would slack off, the fire could die down and require major surgery to recessitate. The manual taxing labor is worth the fire going on and on, not having that emergency re-do stuff happening.