The second load of wood arrived and boy does it look huge. There will definitely be a few pallets of wood outside this winter. The good news is, by the end of this heating season we should know exactly how many face-cords we need to heat this house for a year. Last year I did not start heating the house with wood until Dec 1, which was a full 2 months after I could have weather-wise. This was partly because I did go to Hawaii in November, and partly a learning-curve issue. I had never run a boiler before and we had never used this one to heat the house, only tested it after the repairs the summer before. So it took me a while to get up the nerve to fire it for the first time.

I also missed out on most of February because the system began acting funky around then (approx. 4 months into the heating season). My suspicion was that the tank needed to be bled, but I wasn't confident enough of this theory to actually try to implement that. Later when my Spouse returned it turned out that was indeed the case, and with the tank freshly bled again we heated with wood from March until the end of the season. That year we used about, I'd say, 7 face-cords of wood.

This year we'll have 14 which should theoretically give us 5-6 months worth of nearly full-time heating. We'll see how it works out! I say nearly full-time because I am constitutionally incapable of getting up at 4AM to re-fill the boiler. If I wake up at 4AM I simply do not care enough to get up and do it, no matter how much I told myself I would the night before. Therefore when I'm at home alone it goes to coals overnight and has usually dipped below the minimum heating temperature before I wake up. The other boiler (natural gas fired) switches on automatically to take up any slack.

My father-in-law called having seen the entry about learning to fish. He suggested I try to learn from people I can see catching fish successfully when I am out there, and also suggested practicing casting at home before heading out the first time. I had already thought of both of those ideas so it was very reassuring to have them confirmed by someone who has caught actual fish in their lifetime!

Tonight I went to my first meeting of a local political group I joined. There were a few new people there and the old timers spent the meeting telling everybody about the urgent need for volunteers in several interesting areas. Barb, the lady who runs the local paint exchange (which is for people to drop off old paint they don't need, and other people to come pick up free paint they need for something) needs an apprentice, and since she was the one who recruited me to join I might go that route. Another interesting area is they do local forums to educate the community about candidates for different elections. The candidates show up to the forums and folks get to ask them questions etc. They are in need of people to take questions, time the speeches, little things like that. I'd probably go to those anyway so helping out at the same time wouldn't be so bad.

Barb and I had carpooled to the meeting and since it turns out she is into house repair too I invited her in afterward and gave her a tour of the place. She thought my projects were interesting and she particularly thought the ceiling lights in the kitchen were trippy (her word) and neat. I always have a good feeling about people who like those! Sometime I need to go see her current house too.

After that I was all fired up politically so I got motivated to enter the Google Project 10¹⁰⁰ contest. They will try to get funding for the best ideas submitted with the criteria being that the ideas (if implemented) will help the maximum number of people possible. I have been a huge fan of the Weather Underground site since my Spouse showed it to me so I submitted an idea for an equivalent site for Pollen counts. That could potentially help 1 in 10 people worldwide! Since that is believed to be the number of folks with pollen allergies. I'd really love to see a site like that in place no matter who produced it and drove the project.

As a note we do have our own Weather Station here at the house that is supposed to be on Weather Underground. It is down right now though because I am transferring the weather software off the slow small laptop it's on and moving it to Big Pig. I'll post the link here when it's done, and that way you call can see exactly what the weather is at our house. LOL