A Day of ZERO Stitches

It's pretty unusual for me to (1) not many any stitches at all and (2) be in bed by 9 p.m.

Yesterday we were busy all day. We left the house about 7:30 a.m. and got home about 2:30 p.m. Then I cooked the chicken, cleaned and sliced the strawberries and made all those things for the freezer. Then we went out and got the deck and patio furniture out, got it cleaned up and put where it goes. Then I took a shower, then got wheat ground to make three loaves of bread. I'm not even sure what else I did but we sat down to watch a movie about 8:30. I tried to stay awake but I just wanted to go to sleep so I asked Vince if he cared if I went to bed. He said "Do you feel bad?" Nope, just tired.

I went to bed and briefly was thinking I should get up and make at least one stitch so I wouldn't have a day on my record with no stitching, but before I processed that thought, I was asleep and slept til 8:30 this morning.

Now . . 10:45 a.m., I'm sitting down to stitch. Got the loaves of bread shaped and in the warmest room upstairs to rise; cooked breakfast, a load of laundry is started and I'm planning to stitch until bedtime except for stopping mid-afternoon to make hamburgers. Vince has gone to the storage units to work, the dogs have already gone to sleep next to me so it should be a good stitching day here.

Sassafras Trees

 I'm pretty sure every place I've lived since I first moved out of my parents' home, we've planted a magnolia tree. Probably 15 or 20 years ago, we started planting sassafras trees in our yards.

Here, we have two trees that are small. We had three but . . deer love them!!  This is probably their fourth year. Vince rigged up some fencing to protect the two remaining trees but it needs a bit of sprucing up.

An old fashioned type root beer can be made from the roots. There's been some talk about it not being safe to drink so . . I doubt anyone is going to go foraging for sassafras roots but do some research before you do it.

When I was a child, my dad would take us out in the woods and find a few sassafras roots to bring home and he would make root beer. We didn't have Soda Streams back then and I doubt the little store in our little town even had fizzy water so we always had very flat, odd tasting root beer so I was never impressed. If I come across roots that I could harvest, I may try it again.

Besides them being pretty, I grow them for the leaves.  For gumbo lovers, the file' used in a bowl of gumbo is ground up dried sassafras leaves. Instructions for making file' can be found here. For most of us, gumbo is a cold weather dish. Harvesting the leaves is best done just before the leaves begin to change colors so the timing is perfect in about late August to mid-September to harvest the leaves, dry them, run them through the little Ninja chopper, sift them and have "fresh" file' for gumbo season.

Vince, Chad and I lived in Owensboro, KY for almost 10 years. The largest known sassafras tree is located on one of the main streets in Owensboro. Vince's best friend in Owensboro was Tom. His mother lived in the house where the tree was located and Tom had grown up in that house. The mom and Tom have both passed away but I was able to get leaves from that tree and make file'. I wish I would have kept some in a small bottle . . just for memories but that would have been something else Chad would find one day and think  . . oh, the clutter in this house . . and out it would go!  :)

Breakfast Prepping

Vince and I had to be in Carthage early this morning so we left home without breakfast. We ended up getting a light breakfast out between the four or five stops we had to make and that prompted me to come home and prepare some almost ready to heat and eat breakfast meals for the freezer.

The little Ninja chopper got a good workout!

And, the Souper Cubes are so handy. I'll pop everything out as soon as it's frozen. Most all of this will be used pretty quickly so it will probably go into zipper freezer bags instead of vacuum sealed bags.

Both "sandwiches" started with chicken breasts and jalapeno peppers. When it's time to serve them, I will heat the mixture with softened cream cheese, cook an egg and serve them either as a "pocket" using a tortilla or a sandwich using ciabatta bread

Half of the chicken mixture will be used to make my version of Jalapeno Chicken Pockets. I'll add a fried egg and some kind of cheese - cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, pepper jack - whatever is open and waiting to be used.

To the other half, I added freeze dried basil, a bit of garlic, and extra EVOO - kind of pesto-ish.

These will be served in tomato/herb tortilla with a fried egg and probably mozzarella or parmesan cheese.

Aldi had strawberries on sale this week ($1.99 for a one pound package) so I bought four of those. Two are for snacking/eating and two were for making my favorite strawberry/matcha latte.

Next up . . feed the sourdough starter, get dinner served, eat, clean up the mess, get the bread dough ready to spend the night in the fridge.

I needed extra starter because both Nicole and Debbie need new starters.

The dough is now in the fridge and I can start stitching - 9 p.m. I must do better!  

One More Wood Stove Post

 I promise this is the last wood stove post until after the guys give us some info. They're coming Monday and I don't know if they will give us an estimate then or later.

I showed Vince the AI generated photo of the wood stove and he likes it in the corner BUT he said he thinks he remembers the wood stove guy said up through the roof. I know I've seen black chimney pipe on the outside of houses before but . . I could be wrong on so many levels. If Vince is correct, the only place the wood stove can go is in front of the fireplace. I think our current "fireplace" is a good bit deeper than the ones that are made now so I'm wondering IF it has to go in front, could we take out the current hearth and have a larger one built - half the wood stove would be in the fireplace opening and half would be out on the hearth.

Otherwise, see the placement of the stove in the corner . . our pipe would have to go on the small wall between the edge of the window and the corner. One problem that we may not be able to overcome is that the radon "chimney" is there. This entire house - front, back, left side, right side . . and the radon pipe is in that one spot we would need for the wood stove. 

In the picture above you can see the "chimney" with the two metal vents, which if I didn't know better I would think they were wasp habitat because all summer, we fight the wasps in those. There's a vent for the upstairs and downstairs gas inserts. Then the windows to the left of the chimney, that space to the left of the windows is where the pipe would have to go if I wanted a wood stove in the corner. See the big white pipe in the way - radon vent pipe! Can't get rid of that!

I'm overworking my brain thinking about all this. I'm not going to think about it again . . we'll get all the info we need on Monday.

More on the Wood Stove

 Like everything I do, I think I explained the current "fireplace" totally incorrectly.

What we have now is basically one of those "fake" - totally fake - the chimney is fake, there's a vent outside if that lets air in or takes air out. If you stand less than 2' from it, you feel heat - move any farther away and there's zero heat. What we have is probably not an "insert" - I guess it's just a fake fireplace with a fake fire. I think it's pretty but I'm more about function than pretty.

The last house we built in Louisiana had a fireplace with a blower and a thermostat and the whole house and separate duct work from the regular HVAC. We could set the thermostat and it kept the upstairs and downstairs nice and warm. Of course, it was southwest Louisiana and zero degrees doesn't happen there. In fact, when we built the house, we had decided not to put central heat in and just use the fireplace. The builder said "You may not live here forever and having no central heat may affect your ability to sell the house." We lived there two years and I'm very glad we listened to the builder.

Here's another question for you.

Here's the room with no furniture.  

(1) Here's what I think they're talking about with the wood stove. We'll know more Monday. The stove (probably the black Lopi) will sit in front of the hearth, the pipe will go into the hole where the insert is now and I don't know what happens after that - not sure they can vent it up the current "chimney" or it has to come out and go up.

(2) Here's a thought I had. Tell me if this is a dumb idea. To the right of the fireplace - basically that corner. What if we left the fireplace as it is and put the red stove over there kinda in the corner. That way, if when we start to sell this house, the new person has no interest in a wood stove, they can take it out, patch the one hole in the wall, put in new floor covering (because we'll have to have tile under and around the wood stove) and everything is back to normal.

I'm thinking I might like it better in the corner or almost in the corner because from where we have our furniture, we'd be facing it and be able to see the fire.

It would be a good bit less expensive because they aren't having to tear out the insert and retrofit everything there. And, because the stove wouldn't be sitting in front of the hearth, it would take up a bit less space.

Dumb idea?

 

Another Project for the WIP Bin

 Losing things is nothing new for me. I know that pretty much everything I lose gets found sooner or later. A good percentage of the time, I don't get real worked up about something that's lost because it either turns up or it doesn't. That would be a different story if it was Oscar or Cooper so I'm just talking about "stuff", not loved ones.

I don't remember when I started The Lord's Prayer by Lila's Studio. This is how much I had gotten stitched.

I can't remember where or how I knew but somewhere in that inner border, there was a mistake. When I realized there was a mistake, I just stitched a few letters down the left side to make sure it was all going to fit and I'm pretty sure that it will.

I'm using Vikki Clayton silks and when I use those (they used to be on bobbins), I would keep them in a little rectangular plastic container and it made the project bags bulky so I pulled out all the plastic containers and put them on a shelf in the craft room. Then when I got ready to work on this project months and months ago, the little plastic container of floss wasn't there. I searched for it for a while and gave up. Then a couple of months later, I found it and thought "Great! I can get back on this project" but . . no, I had no idea where I had put that container down.

Yesterday when I was moving quilts from around the gas fireplace, and there was that little pink box. I held my breath for a moment, almost afraid to look at the floss key because I knew I would be disappointed if it wasn't The Lord's Prayer. Yay! It was! Now this one is added as #18 to the WIP bin. 

I will work on Winter Rose Manor the rest of today and tomorrow and then on Saturday I will start a five day stretch of working on The Lord's Prayer! 

Gas Fireplace or Wood Stove?

 The Facts - The Current Setup:

1. We have a gas fireplace upstairs and downstairs. No real fire - just gas fake flames and a little heat - maybe. Both are 2003 models of a Lennox insert. We've been told some of the Lennox units from that era were about ambiance and not about heat. They do not put out much heat! Tons of cold air comes in around them during the winter. I think it has to do with the venting to the outside. I did put up magnetic "blankets" to block the cold air and I've stacked a dozen or more quilts in front of them but I still feel a real breeze coming through.

This is the downstairs fireplace but they both look pretty close to the same. The upstairs may be a bit larger.

2. The first winter I was here alone, I used the gas fireplace upstairs when I was sitting and stitching right next to it. There was some heat but not much and I went through a LOT of propane. That is an older, less efficient unit and I think you get about 2 hours run time on 1 gallon of propane. We had a 250 gallon propane tank at the time and I couldn't believe that in just a couple of weeks, it was down substantially. We turned it off. closed off the pilots on both of them and haven't used them since.

3. If the power was off and it was freezing, we could probably make beds right in front of them and not freeze to death but that's about it.

4. With a heat pump, our house is NEVER warm. This winter, we had three small room type electric heaters

More Facts - The Future Possibilities.

1. I have wanted a wood stove for as long as I can remember. We've only had one house that didn't have a real fireplace. But, I would much prefer a wood stove to a fireplace.

2. I think Vince sees the value in having something that gives off more heat and something that we can use when/if the electricity is off for an extended time.

3. Today we stopped by a fireplace shop and talked to the people.

If we get one, I think this is the one we'll get - the Endeavor by Lopi but, the red Vermont Castings stoves really are begging to come home with me.

I wouldn't get tired of red but Vince might.

The best part, besides warm heat, no drafts and the sound and view of a fire would be having a pot of stew or beans or chili simmering every day on the stove. I'm always downstairs and I have to go upstairs a million times a day with something cooking on the stove. OK . . there is a stove in the basement but it has canners on every burner. I leave them there even when I'm not canning. Sounds pretty lazy, huh?

The fireplace people are coming out Monday to check it all out and see if an installation is going to be as easy as I made it sound. I'm sure the answer to that is no because, as you know, I have no idea what I'm talking about - especially when it comes to wood stoves.

Questions:

I understand that not everyone loves a fireplace or wood stove. I know not everyone wants to deal with bringing firewood in on a cold, icy night or tromping through the snow to get firewood. We would keep some of it very close to the house and keep it covered. I know we're all different. I do not mind throwing logs on a fire. I don't mind pulling the ash drawer out and dumping wood ashes in my garden. 

We added the greenhouse a few years ago and it's just too hard/expensive to keep it warm during the cold nights of early spring so we aren't using it for much. It's about three steps away from the concrete patio so I figure we could keep some amount of wood in there and that would keep it dry so on rainy/snowy nights, we could grab wood out of the greenhouse.

It has been 45 or more years since I had a wood stove. What am I not thinking about that I will wish I had remembered? Are we too old to be doing this?

I have called our insurance company and it's less than $100 more per year added to our annual premium if we add a wood stove so that isn't a consideration.

One of the biggest thoughts for me is electricity. I don't feel like our grid is reliable. In the summer, we could survive in the basement without a/c. In the winter, with no heat, we could not survive - some winters. Not all of our winters get down to zero for multiple nights. Some do. In the six winters we've been here, about half of them have had multiple nights below zero. About half of them, it rarely got down to the teens. Who knows? I would feel like with the wood stove, we could stay warm in the winter; with the basement, we could survive in the summer so, for me it's about getting rid of these drafty gas inserts; having warm air, and having a way to cook/heat water if we needed it.

Thanks if you're still reading this far down and thanks for any info/thoughts you care to share.