Getting Ready for Cold Weather

Last night was cold enough to remind me its time to get the wood stove ready for use. Cleaning the stove always makes me think of Cinderella. Cleaning out the ash, getting black hands from using the blackening is a dirty job, but one that has to be done. I polished the brass around the door and even cleaned all the fireplace tools. Only job left to do is scrub the brick pad under the stove and give it a good coat of wax which makes it easier to keep clean. I like to use the stove blackening before its too cold out, so I can have the first fire with a window open, sometimes there is a bit of a smell as the excess burns off. You can click HERE and HERE to see previous posts with pictures on stove cleaning day. A new trick I learned this year, is that you can clean the creosote off the glass with diluted dish soap, it works great. If your doors are crusted with creosote, scrape off the creosote with a razor blade first. I try to keep our doors clean throughout the heating season so we can enjoy seeing the fire. In past I have used a commercial creosote glass cleaner.

Tomorrow we hope to get the wood ring set up on the back porch, keeping a couple days wood handy and dry will be nice. Fewer trips to the woodpile in the middle of the night. We will probably keep a barrel of kindling on the back porch too.

In the next few days we will have a buck arrive to breed our does. Yes, we are keeping the goats. Just can't seem to part with them. When we tried to sell them, it never seemed to work out so we take that as a sign we are meant to keep them.

I love the coming cold, its just so refreshing after a long hot summer.

Now off to make some pumpkin bread to take down to Melanie's house. I am hoping today she feels lots better.

looking forward to the first fire of the season !