11/6 Night

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A warm beautiful fall day today. The next two days are forecast to be even warmer. Rain and cooler weather starting Wednesday.

We got up about 2 AM last night and put wood in the stove. When we woke around 7 or so the fire was out as we'd only filled it half way with the small wood we had laying around. We started a new fire and the cabin warmed quickly. Rachel made oatmeal on the top of it. This evening she's going to try sourdough biscuits in the oven.

We'd intended on keeping the birds locked up a full week to give the predator a chance to move on, but while letting out the ducks through the front door [they're reluctant to go out the new run door as birds hate anything new] two guineas flew out over her head. So after keeping the hens up long enough to lay we let everybody out. No mishaps. Rosy came into the house to eat barley from our hands. She'll jump up into the air to get it if you hold a grain in the air and it's funny to watch. 2 eggs today.

We fired up the new 18" Homelite chainsaw today and spent a few hours cutting and splitting dead wood for the stove. It took a while to get the saw adjusted to the right idle speed and chain tension, but once we did it cut through everything very easily and we piled up nearly half a rick. Rachel and I worked together which makes chainsaw use safer, as well as more efficient, as she can move small logs along a prop for each cut and all I do is cut. Most of the pieces split easily [especially when struck right] with the 6# splitting maul. We do need a good stump to split on - the 2x12 board got split to pieces, and splitting on the ground is not very efficient and too low for a good precise whack.

Vic and Jo stopped by to see the new stove installed. We had a salad from the garden for lunch - lettuce and radishes with grated cheese and hard-boiled eggs and homemade blue cheese dressing.

Tomorrow we're insulating the ceiling of the girls' room so their room will better retain heat - it's the coolest room in the house. If that doesn't solve the problem, we'll install a series of wall vents in the lower loft wall which we share with the upper wall of the girls' room. This will help air better circulate through the cabin, instead of heat coming up from the stove and getting trapped in the loft.
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