As you’ve seen, the 25 Acres team took an extended break over the holidays. Time now to get to it.
That said, many thanks to those of you, Barbara, who missed the digest and reached out to ask about whether we’d be back.
But of course!
One calls a group of crows a “murder.”
One calls a group of ravens a “treachery.”
So, what would one call a slew of new subscribers?
Well, as a result of our “we've moved” message, that’s what we have on our hands.
Those of you who are new, hi there! You know who you are. Give yourself a pat on the back and welcome to the 25 Acres Digest!
This mystery of what to call a group of new subscribers … let’s get to the bottom of it. New subscribers: just what tag would you like? Honored prior subscribers, you’re welcome to chime in too.
As always, we’ll share the results in the next edition.
Our big news is, at long last, snow!
We’ve been scraping along on a measly 2-3’ total so far in the season. But Wednesday brought us 8” or so then Friday brought us 18”.
See how Our Sponsor is but a wee dot in front of the snow on our driveway? Is it that she shrunk under all those layers she put on to get ready to go outside and play? Or maybe it’s when you plow the driveway the much snow piles up quickly?
Just in time for the Olympics, our driveway has become a luge chute. The Subaru couldn’t be happier.
Longtime readers will want to know: how is the wood burning going?
For new subscribers, we’re trying to heat with wood. We weren’t really sure just how much wood we’ll need. We put away four cords of wood before winter. A “cord” is firewood-speak for a 8’ x 4’ x 4’ block of tightly-stacked wood. So, four cords would more or less fill the Hilton Astoria ballroom.
You must be wondering: How’d it go?
Err, lessons were learned.
The wood totally lasted through winter.
Super exciting! Congrats to the team! The skeptics amongst you may note that this is in part because the editorial team here at 25 Acres have declared that “Winter” ends on December 31st. Everyone is tired of winter by then anyway, amiright?
The wood did not get us but a week into the following season.
Our editorial team has tagged the season that starts Jan 1, the one we’re in now, as “Yes, It’s Still Winter”. We’re keeping the woodstove going by digging into next winter’s stocks. (See here to explore the full set of seasons we enjoy up here in Maine.)
We maybe might have been using the stove wrong.
There’s a control to adjust the airflow. We had learned that if it’s maxxed out, the stove burns hotter. Great! The wood burns most efficiently and completely this way. So that’s what we did … after all, it was cold in the house in the morning.
But, we have since learned, ungreat! The wood burns fast and most of the heat goes up the chimney.
Who could’ve known? It further turns out that are actually as many stages to properly burning a load of wood as there are seasons in Maine. We’re now big acolytes of secondary combustion.
Wet wood takes more weeks to weather
We also realized that our wood was not seasoned (i.e., dry) enough. That means that much of the energy in the wood goes to boil off the water it contains.
Hmmm.
Our plan had been to keep a year ahead, meaning that we’d have *8* cords on hand at the start of each winter: 4 to burn that year and 4 to season more for the following year.
We now understand we should have a *three* year rotation. Or enough wood to not just fill the ballroom at the Astoria but also the penthouse suite too.
It’s 2022. We’ve got this.
That’s it for this week.
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