Dec 11-12, '09

We arrived after 3 with cloudy conditions, temps in the low 40s, and light rain predicted for Saturday. The house was its typical 54 degrees after a cold week (single digits one night), so we cranked the heaters up.

Left Front Mud Flap
I had ordered replacement mud flaps, since my front driver side one was torn off when the wrecker drug my Tacoma back up onto the road last month. My drill is at the farm, so had to get this put on while out there, and since it was likely to be wet Saturday this became the first order of business. No problem, but it is basically screwed into plastic. We'll see how that holds.

Split Wood
With just a bit more daylight I decided to split the the larger ice storm limbs I had set aside behind the barn. I thought my wedges were down there with my splitting mauls, but they weren't. It turned out I really didn't need them. Use two mauls and the sledge hammer to get through even the hickory that had been set aside since February.

Heater
The pilot on the propane heater in the kitchen area just suddenly went out Friday evening. We've had chronic problems with the pilot on this unit. Several years back I took it to AmeriGas in Fayetteville and he just blew it out with some compressed air. A couple of years ago I took to Anderson's to be worked on, but don't recall what they did. In all cases I had always been able to re-light it so that it could be used temporarily. Not this time. Even holding a lighter to it, I couldn't get it to stay on. Saturday I called around and couldn't find anyone in Berryville or Eureka that carried them, thinking I would just go ahead and replace it. But I couldn't find one, so I moved the one from the living room into this core room of the house. My fear is the pilot goes out during really cold weather and the pipes freeze, so I like having two. And I like not relying on electricity, which as we saw this year, can be out for days. We dropped the unit off at Anderson's on the way back into town. I am anxious to see what they do to it.

Squirrel on Feeder
This was the first time that I had seen this. Figuring he wouldn't be able to climb up the barb wired raccoon baffle, I guessed that he had jumped from the adjacent Sassafras tree which was getting pretty large. So, I cut it.

Burned
I didn't have a lot of time Saturday, as we were heading home early to baby sit Savannah for the night. But since it was wet and rain forecasted I decided to go ahead do some burning up the hill behind the house. After I got the fire started, I got nervous about all the high dry grass that had grown up in the burn circle since it was used last year. I kept the fire small and began intentionally burning the grass to clear the area. Then it rained and I wasn't as worried. I probably got about 15% of the cedars burned that I had drug up -- so some progress.