Compost pile was at 115°F this afternoon. That’s pretty awesome, all powered by coffee grounds — proves that’s all you need to heat up a compost pile.
A “snow event” is forecast for Sunday. Looks like we’ll be on the line between rain and snow, so could be interesting if we get significant rain on frozen ground.
So Wisconsin’s new Governor Walker is attempting to bust public employee unions. I know we’re all going to have to make sacrifices, but he’s going about it in a shitty way. I’m betting my paycheck is going to shrink by 5-10% this year.
Anyway, we’re going to have start being more careful about our expenditures than we’ve been in the last couple of years. This is probably just the beginning of a long decline. This is what all the money and financial bloggers have been predicting for years, that the decline will seem relatively slow to those of us experiencing it, but major losses will take place over a twenty-year period. That’s what Sharon Astyk always said, that there probably won’t be dramatic drops in income or standards of living, but that more and more people will enter into what she calls normal human poverty.
This is all part of the financial meltdown, climate change, and peak oil trio of disasters we’re facing.
We had a face cord of mixed mostly hardwood delivered last Saturday morning, 2/12. It cost $120, cash, from Dave Lovejoy. Seems like a decent chap. His business is land clearing, so the wood is a by-product and a sideline.He dumped it in the driveway in front of the garage, so then we had to move most of it to the back porch, a little to the woodbox, and a little to the garage. D, G, and M all helped move the wood, and afterwards it dawned on me that maybe those boys will be able to make a real contribution to the labor around here some day. Wow.
Anyway, Dave said a full cord is three times as much wood for $250 cash, and I’m planning to give him a call and order that in June or so. I might even get two cords. I wonder if his little dump truck will hold that much.
I measured the place on the back porch where I keep some firewood, and figured out that it’s almost exactly a face cord. That’s really good to know — will help in determining how much we burn and how much we get when we buy wood.
Three days after the blizzard of 2/1/2011, the active compost pile had an internal temperature of 105°F; today, it was down to 100°F. It had a lot of snow around it acting as insulation. I’m thinking that next year I should stack straw bales around the active compost pile in October.
I added 70 gallons of coffee grounds and 15 gallons of kitchen waste to the compost pile today. I tend to let it build up when it’s cold outside, but this was a bit much — it took over two hours, and it was definitely a workout
It’s sunny, breezy, and in the mid-40s today. Just a few days ago it was 12 below.
I was going to get up on the roof and sweep the chimney today, but there was still too much snow up there for me to do it safely. We’re supposed to have this mild weather for another several days, so I may get a chance yet this week.
It’s one of those nights when the wind is whipping and the snow is blowing. They’re calling it a blizzard, the great blizzard of 2011. School’s canceled tomorrow and I doubt I could go in to work at the usual time even if I wanted to. When I got home about 3:30 pm today, the road was already mostly drifted over, and barely passable.
They say there’s a pretty good El Nina happening now. They say storms in the continental US may have more moisture to work with because of global warming or climate change. Whatever. It is what it is, and there’s not a damn thing we’re gonna do about it.
I’m sitting in be wondering if the power is going to go off and how we’ll survive the next couple days of very cold weather if it does. But we’d be okay.
I’d close off both bedrooms, put the door back in the doorway to the dining room in close it, and hang a blanket or comforter across the doorway to the living room. Then at night we’d just have to heat the kitchen and the front room with the woodstove, and we’d all sleep on the futon out there. If it were sunny during the day, I’d open the doorway to the living room and we’d get some heat from that.
I’d bring the bucket toilet back upstairs and we’d all use that instead of the flush toilet. If it got down in the 30’s in the house at night, I’d drain the pipes.
We could cook using our regular stove, we’d just have to light the propane by hand. Keeping food we have cold would not be an issue.
We have a few gallons of drinking water in the basement. We have a 55-gallon barrel of water in the basement also, that could probably be used for drinking after filtering. We could also melt snow on the woodstove.
So living here for a week without electricity would not be that much of an issue. Beyond that, we’d start to run into some issues, but we might be able to make it until Spring. So bring it on.
Ending and Beginning 