Shoulder Season Is Wrecking My Shoulders

First winter in northern MN in my 65 years that burning 24/7 has only occurred 7/24 - probably not more than 7 days so far this season that have had to burn for 24 hours. Day after day, start the stove in the morning, let it burn out because it is so warm outside that the house would become a sauna. Start in the evening, let it burn out, ditto.

Forecasts for the next week remain with daytime highs into the 30's and lows in the 20's; last two days the highs were 40's to near 50. No snow. Typical Jan temps would be low's into the -30'sF and highs around -10F. Birds are singing their spring calls; many birds have not even migrated south. Still slapping mosquitoes and picking off ticks - LOL.

65 years of environment is getting really messed up. Mother Nature must be choking and suffocating on all that added CO2 us highly intelligent bi-peds are spewing into her breathing space.

Keep it down she might hear you.

Be careful what you wish for bud. Your neck of the woods are notorious for getting slammed with snow, ice and cold. i do agree that this year has been unusually warm but compared to last year at this time when we already had over 3 feet of snow fallen, I will take it.

I'm a bit 'understoved' for the cold part of Minnesota winters so my stove running 24/7 is perfect for this kind of weather. I'll take it.

Oh, and don't worry, we'll get our dose come end of next week....Yearly average temp varys very little year to year. My guess is the winter will begin to pick up, we'll get a cold February and another long cold spring.

Adam

Its all in the way the wind blows. Every year is different. I work outside and I'm enjoying the mild winter.

we have had 4 to 5 hard winters in the NE. We were due for an easy one. We will probably get some snow next month, but the sun is already getting higher and we are less than 6 weeks away from tapping the maple trees.... SPRING!

Global warming is better than global cooling. I'm kind a enjoying this mild Winter.

My 3 year supply of wood is looking to become 5 years at this rate. Haven't even used up 1/2 cord yet, despite trying.

This heating season has been great for the BKK..but I'm not happy about no snow for us to ride our sleds!
Wife is even getting edgy!

It's been so warm, I think my wood is still drying in January! :coolsmile:
It's wrecking my shoulders, too. I'm still out there processing firewood!

I'm using less wood in general but.... More cold starts = more kindling. I hate splitting kindling.

yep..
And each fire you start is wasting more heat up the pipes to get the stove to operating temp...and the house.
But still you are saving wood by not burning full time and not over heating your house that way.
It takes a cat stove to do the long slow burns and even then you might have too much heat when it's warm out depending on the cat stove and wood.

This winter so far has reminded me of a couple of winters we had in the late 1940's and early 1950's. One statement that was made back then has always stuck with me and I've laughed about it a lot. Especially in the early 1950's I remember the prediction that by the year 2000 winter coats would perhaps not even be sold as all one would need would be a sweater. As we all know, that prediction did not come to pass but years like this makes one wonder. But still, I recall many years when we had barely any snow all year. One year in particular in this area we received a grand total of 17" of snow for the entire winter! Not a whole lot of business for those who depend on a few dollars from plowing snow!

One extreme tends to follow another and things do tend to average out over time. We still do not know what the remainder of the winter will bring but I am still holding to my prediction of very little snow but several times getting ice storms.

I've got some oak seasoning which I figured would be used next year but that puts it just a 2 years seasoned. The way this weather is going my oak will sit until 2012/13 which is just fine with me as it will then be 3 yrs. seasoned and should be great burning.

Weather like this is the reason I like stacking my wood in 'divided' sections where I can sort out the wood. I've got shagback hickory here, then I've got box elder in the next 'bin', soft maple in the next bin, etc. which makes it easy to pick 'n choose what I want to burn in accordance to the weather. Sorting makes my stacks look a little uneven but it works for me.

If this mild winter is due to global warming then that sucks, but I m hoping this is just a natural process. Either way this has been great on my wood supply. I'm worried its going to be a buggy summer.

At the rate I have been burning so far. I am afraid I won't have any room to stack all the wood that have brought home this fall. I have a couple cords stacked around on the lawn and nearly a cord of Red Oak that is still on the old flatbed waiting to be split and stacked.

I'll take Firewood prices going down next year...?
md

It's been kind of nice. We were out pulling check valves that we left on the maple taps all summer (oops). We have had good luck boiling them to clean, which is alot cheaper than replacing 2500 check valves each year.I wish we were tapped now because it was running today.

We have been burning 24/7 here, but the house is basically in a Hay field and when the wind picks up from the west, well, you can feel it in the house (that's a project for this summer). We were supposed to get something like 30" last weekend and only got 8.

As much as I wish it was cold and snowy so I could snowmobile . . . I'm right there with you on the bugs . . . in particular the ticks . . . never had a problem with ticks up this way until a couple years back . . . all I can figure is the more mild winters are allowing them to survive the winter better.

Wasn't it in the '70's when pollution was blocking the sun and causing another ice age?
It's always something if you listen to it.
Kenny

I am kind of enjoying this warmer weather. I have half of my house resided, a project that I didn't think I would get to this soon. Back to work tomorrow. Haven't even used 2 of the 7'x12' rows of firewood in my shed yet. The only bad news is that since I am working I haven't had time for this forum like past years.
Doug

woah that's awesome. I wish I had 1/2 my house resided. With any luck I'll be tackling that by the end of the summer when the days are longer and my budget permits.