Busy, Busy, Busy!

Phew! I haven't had many moments to stop and catch my breath these past two weeks. I have been constantly on the move!  Where to begin? 

Extended Day.

Yep, I took an after-school tutoring job. I just couldn't say no ($45 an hour and I stay in my own classroom!). Our "Extended Day" program is twice a week (one hour a day) for students in third, fourth, and fifth grade who need an extra little boost in reading. My district is doing this to better their scores on the CMT (Connecticut Mastery Test) and for No Child Left Behind. My group includes 9 third graders (7 of my own and 2 from the other class). We're practicing fluency by doing Reader's Theaters and reading (and singing!) song lyrics. I've downloaded children's' songs like "The Green Grass Grew All Around" and "Boom, Boom, Ain't it Great to Be Crazy?" and Beatles songs (which they LOVE). We're doing "Yellow Submarine" and "Good Day Sunshine." Since I don't (and can't) sing, I play these songs via my iPhone into my classroom tape player/radio. 

Conferences.

Thank God they're over! Last week was conference week. I had to meet with 22 parents (plus have a phone conference). Each conference lasts 15 minutes. You do the math. Wednesday our conferences were scheduled from 6:00-8:00 p.m.  We had a half day of school and, stupid me, I decided to stay at school to get work done. Well, I did get plenty done but boy was I fried come 8:00! Especially since I had been there since 7:00 a.m. Needless to say, on Thursday I came home for 2 hours in between the end of school and the beginning of conferences. Friday was our last conference day, our "early" day as our conferences were scheduled from 1:00-3:00. I, of course, had a parent say she couldn't come at her scheduled time of 2:30 but wanted a 3:15 appointment. I relented. Pete, God bless him, took me out to eat at the Olive Garden that night.

 

Wood.

Yes, we're still getting wood. This past Saturday (day after my week of conference Hell) we did a "quickie" run to my parents' house for a load and a little bit of splitting. We knew it was going to rain mid-afternoon and evening and we wanted to make the most of the dry weather. We got back to our house around 2:00 p.m. and it had just started to drizzle. We figured we'd unload our wood anyway. Well, the drizzling stopped but, in doing so, it began to do something else: pour. Yep, you guessed it! We stuck it out and continued to unload our truck and stack the wood (outside, mind you) in the pouring rain. Pete and I were both soaked when we finished. We haven't gotten wet like that since our mid-winter window well fiasco in 2007!

New Students.

Yes, that's students, plural. It's not like I had a big class to begin with! (Ha Ha!). I am now up to 24 kids. The biggest third grade in my district. (We have, let's see, 17 or 18 third grade classes in my district. Geesh, what an honor!) Yesterday I was running around like a mad woman trying to get folders, pencils, name plates, etc. all in order. The custodian never came in to adjust my new desks and one of the lockers I was going to use was stuck. My two new ones (a boy and a girl) seemed like they had a good start. The boy has a lot of baggage (attacking people at home with kitchen knives and screwdrivers, among other things) but has had a lot of intervention and is hopefully on the mend.

Leaves.

The bain of my existence!! The weekends are filled with wood cutting and Pete's days off have been filled with, you guessed it, foul weather. Our yard was a complete disaster and, to make matters worse, we have to do his mother's yard too. Pete's days off this week (Thursday and Friday) are predicted be very wet. We can't do leaves in that! Seeing as today was a holiday and I didn't have school, I resolved myself to do the leaves solo. I was prepared. After talking to my mom this morning at 7:00, she told me that she and Pop were going to come out and help me. Hallelujah! I began my intense raking at 8:00. I raked out all of my flower beds and gardens and finished at 10:00. I then called Pete and had him walk me through the process of starting our backpack leaf blower. I then operated that baby until my parents arrived at 10:30. All three of us then blew the leaves in our front yard into the woods (they too, both had backpack blowers). Shortly thereafter, we moved into the back yard and created two large piles closer to my neighbor's yard. On the other side of the yard, we again blew the leaves into the woods. When we were finished, we went back to the piles and raked them onto a tarp. We then dragged the tarp into the woods. We repeated that about 8 times in the back and about 4 times in the front (we had a large pile closer to the house). We came in for a quick lunch at noon and then we were back out. We finally finished at 2:00 this afternoon.  Phew! Oh, yes, we still have to do mom-in-law's leaves. Perhaps Sunday? Maybe in the rain? Ugh!

As you can see, I've been....

Busy,

Busy,

Busy!

Wood, Wood, Wood, and More Wood!

Wood:

It's coming out of my ears!  Every weekend for the past month (or more perhaps, I've lost count) we've been cutting, marking, splitting, loading, stacking, transporting, unloading, and stacking again.  We're keeping the seasoned wood (ready to be burned) on our screened in porch. Here's our "Quick Grab" pile next to the kitchen door.

An "aerial shot" of our piles at the back of our porch. We've currently got 7 rows....

Here's our "reserve pile" outside; this is the wood that we'll be burning come January as it's not quite seasoned yet. When our porch wood is depleted, this is the stuff that we'll use to "re-fill."
Our truck fashioned with homemade sides for extra wood carrying capacity. Without this baby, there'd be no wood burnin' for us!  (Of course, if we didn't have the truck payment, we'd have no problem paying for oil!)  But, why pay for oil when you can have the satisfaction of knowing that YOU were able to heat your own house and get a lot of exercise while doing it?!  We wouldn't have it any other way!
Yes, it may look like a lot of wood but, it's not!! We're heading out again next weekend and several more will follow suit.

Wood, wood, wood, and more wood!  What's fall without it?  :)

Wood Cutting Weekend #2

Another weekend of back-breaking work is behind us.....

Next weekend, we're going out with the truck to take this load home with us. We wanted to leave it split for a week to "air out" before taking it home to stack.

All of this split wood comes from the oak tree that Adam and Pete cut up last weekend. While Pop and I split, Adam and Pete were deep in the woods cutting up a second tree. We'll split that one next weekend. We've got four other trees that are down so we'll be at this for a while longer!

Thinking of Winter

It's that time of year; there's a hint of yellow in the foliage, leaves litter the yard, and the windows have been closed at night. Socks have come out of their summer hibernation and short sleeved shirts have lost their appeal.  Fall has arrived and with it comes our annual foray into the woods for the next 8 to 10 weekends.

This year, we're getting wood for not only our house but some for my brother too. Between us, we'll be cutting and splitting about 10 cords; 6 to 7 cords of wood for our house and about 3 cords for Adam's house.  We always start mid-September as it is a lot of work and takes several weekends of cutting, splitting, loading, and unloading.

This year, I'm ready! Here I am sporting my new steel-toed lady Red Wings. I love these babies!

Pete surveying a large oak that he cut down in May. It's seasoned enough and ready to be cut up. We'll burn it in January.

Our war wagon and wood hauler: A 1972 Dodge Ram in "multi-color". Beat to all hell but works like a champ in these punishing conditions. Pop and Adam fashioned an all-steel bed and removable steel sides. This baby is perfect for the tough terrains and loves to dig into a small tree or two that stands in its way.
Pop using his Bobcat to grab and transport the large tree sections. He puts these directly onto the truck. Pete and Adam will cut them up later after they've been transported to the splitting area that is up closer to the house.
This is something I certainly cannot do!  These babies weigh about 100 pounds each!
This is what my job was yesterday: I had a 17" marker that I used to mark 17 inch sections on each tree limb. I used a hack saw to saw an "X" where each cut with the chainsaw needed to go. Our stove takes 17" logs and each piece needs to be measured carefully.

Done for the day. We've transported the entire oak up to our splitting area. The next weekend that we're out, Pete and Adam will cut these pieces up into individual logs. Pop then will take each log and split it with our hydraulic splitter. While Mom runs the splitter and Pop splits, I'll pack the truck up with wood. Our truck can hold 7/8 of a cord of wood using the sides that Pete and Pop built for it.

Yes, it may seem like a lot of work, and it is but we all enjoy it as we're all outside getting exercise and delight in each other's company. I'm glad that my parents are well enough to be able to do this with us and I am especially thankful for the use of their 55 acres!  So, needless to say, Pete and I savor this time of year!

Our Project This Afternoon: Envi Blocks

Since Pete is off today, we figured we'd get some house projects done.  One of them is to move our third ton (yes, a ton) of Envi Blocks from the bulkhead area of our basement to the area where the other two tons are stacked.  We've got to move them for a couple of reasons: 1. They're in the way and 2. They're not on a pallet or anything so if water comes in through the bulkhead it will be bad news.  What is an Envi Block?  Why do we have them?  Well, Pete and I burn wood (about 6 - 7 cords) to heat our house in the winter.  My parents have 55 acres and the wood is free.  Burning wood is also carbon neutral (the amount of carbon dioxide a tree takes in during it's lifetime is released when burned).  We're not cleaning the air but we're certainly not adding pollutants to it either.  Anyway, we love burning wood but now that Pete is working 5 days a week instead of his 3 days, we're going to be gone from the house more.  I am gone for 9 hours a day during the school year and, without one of us home to feed the stove, it would be pretty chilly in here at 4:00 when I got in.  We have our furnace set to come on at 60 and we absolutely hate to hear it come on. The Envi Blocks are going to help us with that. They are made from compressed sawdust and wood pieces that are left over from sawmills. When 3 blocks are burned at the same time, they last for about 9 hours.  After we tested a few of them out this past spring, we decided to purchase a pallet (a ton) of them.  Each pallet holds 300 Envi Blocks.  We have since purchased two more pallets. Although we are paying for the Blocks ($260 per pallet) we are still saving money as our furnace hopefully won't have to fire up. Home heating oil is $4 something and we have a 250 gallon tank. Our first winter in the house we had to fill that baby up 4 times! So, once Pete gets up from his little cat nap, it's down to the basement with some gloves and our dolly!