Come On Baby Light My Fire

Heating season is officially upon us.  Yesterday evening, DH finally lit a fire in the wood boiler.  I think this is the latest we've ever fired it up; this October has been especially warm. Even on the not so warm days it's been pretty sunny so we've had a little passive solar heating keeping the house warm enough to be comfortable most of the time.  I get cold easily, so comfortable means that it was in the range of 64 degrees and above.

I think that good weather was sort of, maybe, a negative thing.  Because it allowed DH to keep putting off tasks that normally would be done by now.  Like replacing the chimney on the wood boiler; the chimney that had developed a small hole and resultant leak (and decreased function) last winter.  He finally got around to replacing it, well, yesterday afternoon, a few hours before lighting the fire.

Another task that normally is done by now is splitting and stacking the winter's worth of wood.  On the left of the boiler in the picture above, you see what is left of last year's wood that didn't get used.  To the right and behind the boiler in the picture, is the humongous pile of aged wood that we brought in from our random stacks in the woods (from where we cut and stack downed trees each winter and leave them to age and dry for two or more years) this spring and summer.  He will probably be getting the splitter out of the barn soon and tackling that pile. He has three weeks of vacation from work that he always saves for late October through Thanksgiving time--prime deer hunting time; that gives him plenty of afternoons to split wood between the morning hunt and the evening hunt.  ;0)

What matters most is that even though it's gotten cold outside, in the house it's nice and toasty, thanks to the fire going in the wood boiler.