Hello Everyone!
Another long writing break, Electric heat at last, Propane woes, A frozen landscape & I should have filtered the rainwater!
Alright, that was another long pause with the writing and apparently 'for the life of me' I cannot seem to stay in a decent routine with it all. This time around (with the pause) I did spend a good bit of time writing... but the bulk of it was done conversing with an AI while working on some coding projects.
That hobby has proven to be a really pleasant activity to do when it is biting cold outside... and of course it has been exactly that for quite some time now. It is worth noting that I only ran out of propane completely once... and have been limping along ever since on a brand new twenty pound tank... that unfortunately came with a weak safety valve.
A few weeks back someone had the bright idea to help me get some twelve gauge extension cords so that I could use my recirculating oil heater... and not have to rely on propane so much. Given that I have the electricity 'at the power pole' to use... and getting the propane tanks refilled involves scheduling a ride... and on top of that it is probably cheaper to use the electric heater.
I still use the propane heater when I want to warm the tent up quickly (usually after letting the dogs in or out) but overall that one recirculating oil heater on its lowest setting seems to do the trick. There have only been a few nights (and days) where I have felt the need to run the heater on its 'medium' setting... and after checking whether the extension cord got warm to the touch or not... I am inclined to think it would work on its highest setting if need be.
Overall, the weather has been total crap here and for a long time there (well over two weeks) nothing thawed out much after we got a few heavy snows combined with lots of low teen (and single digit) nights that had quite the negative windchill factor. At times, all I could really do is keep my gloves on, wrap a blanket around me... and focus as much as I could on what was in front of me on the computer screen... because during some of the worst weather I was either low on (or out of) propane altogether.
Anyways, the winter has been grinding on here and although things are a bit mucky outside... I have not had to many occasions where I have found myself slipping and sliding around. A big part of that is that I gathered up a bunch of fallen leaves... and covered the main walkways with them so that me and the dogs would not track so much mud into the tent.
On a different note, I used up almost all of the rainwater that I captured during hurricane Helene... and although there is still a small amount left in the barrel... I am going to save it for emergency use only. I am unsure on exactly when it happened... but a while back I got some kind of infection in my mouth, ear, throat and head all at once... and I immediately switched to getting water delivered instead.
Ever since then the infection has retreated... and I have not had anymore fevers or anything... so I think it was mainly due to not purify/filtering the rainwater. I was however boiling it each time that I used it... and knew that I was engaging in dodgy behavior by not even doing the most rudimentary of filtering... so I got what I had coming to me.
In other news, I am thinking that this year I want to grow as many potatoes as I possibly can... and by the time they are ready to harvest I want to have a root cellar built to store them in. My other big goal is to construct a second smaller cellar before next winter so that when everything freezes over I can harvest blocks of ice... and store it in the ground and see just how long I can make it last.
Well, I have a lot more that I would love to write about... but if I dive into all that madness I will be pecking away at the keyboard all night... and never get this edited and posted. I hope that everyone is doing well and all that feel good jazz. Ciao for now.
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