Good Morning. Current temperature…. 5 degrees.
It’s practically a heat wave from some of the 20 below days we have had of recent.
This morning…. I thought I would give you a little dose of Minnesota.
Throughout the last month as I have been reading some of the blog posts out there I have seen posts about biking, or enjoying the cooler temps of 60 and 70 degrees…. on one post I even read that the blogger went to the beach for Christmas.
The beach.
I do love to think of where you are all reading this post from… sitting in your homes or offices all over the world. Grasp that thought for a moment. Doesn’t that just blow you away?
Here is a little piece of my Minnesota around this time of year. We heat our home with wood, but not a fireplace in our home. What we have is a wood stove that sits out behind our home and in front of our business. The wood stove heats water that runs through pipes and heats our home and our business with hot water. For us it is cost efficient as my husband owns an excavating company and we get much of the wood for free when we clear lots for new homes.
This time of year when it is really cold like it has been lately it is a lot of work to keep the stove temperature up. My hubby goes to bed around 8 pm (I know – he keeps such odd hours!) and fills the stove then. I am usually up until about midnight and before I go to bed I go and fill it again so the temperature stays nice and warm until Al (hubby) gets up at around 5 am (hey I told you he kept odd hours) and fills it and goes to work.
Here is the visual for all you readers out there of me filling the stove at midnight:
- First I put on a heavy winter coat, gloves, and hubby’s boots (mine are too darn cute to wear to the wood stove!)
- Next I drive down to the stove (yes, I drive! Its cold and dark and the headlights help me see the woodpile!)
- I then proceed to grab wood off the pile (the pieces I can lift) and toss them into the mouth of this huge wood stove
- If I am lucky I do not singe my hair…. but usually… I do singe my hair. (So annoying)
- Once I am done I drive back to the house smelling like a piece of beef jerky
There you have it. My life is not all the warm lovely pictures of me in my home with a book…. nope the reality this time of year is big coat, big man boots, red nose, singed hair….odd smoky smell that seems to be…me
(I bet now you know why I LOVE LOVE LOVE summer so much!)
SO for giggles…. if you comment on this post tell me where you are at this morning. (State or country and actual spot you are commenting from: IE. Chicago: home office)
In my case that answer would be: Minnesota: kitchen table
Book Journey 
Mmmm…beef jerky! Yum!
Pennsylvania: Library office.
The library office- and nice and early too Karen!!
Florida–sorry ;)–I’m in bed writing from my iPad.
I lived in Wisconsin before moving here back in 2009.
OOH Florida…..
We can still be friends because you once lived in Wisconsin 😀
This post brought such a smile to my face since I just finished loading up my indoor wood burning stove and too, as well as my entire house, smell like a piece of beef jerky.
Michigan – sitting by the warmth of the stove in my comfy chair :o)
That sounds like a nice picture Sarah. I headed out the door into the cold once I posted this. Work…. at least my office is fairly warm 😀
I’m at my desk in my high school library in Illinois. It gets cold here, but not as consistently as where you are. And we have a gas furnace — so no hauling wood. Stay warm!
We have back up fuel Annette but as you can imagine – that gets quite pricey this time of year! 🙂
Family room in Staunton, Virginia. Happy New Year, Shelia!
I blog often from the family room Stephanie – I like blogging from the recliner! 😀
suburb of chicago in my cozy bedroom…i think it’s in the teens right now…just came back from the forest preserve with the pooch and whoo boy it was cold!
I have never been to Chicago Diana but I hope to some day!
OMG, I’m sitting here in my office in Central California, enjoying a foggy day. I had to go to my Yahoo page to see the temperature, which is 34. We think that’s cold…I know, silly.
Until four years ago, I lived in the foothills about 40 minutes from this city. We didn’t have central heating; only a wood stove in my house and in the guesthouse next door. I used a lot of space heaters, because it was a lot of trouble to keep the stove going, and if I was gone for the day, it could have been dangerous.
The year (2007) my eldest son was visiting from Europe; he kept the stove going in the guesthouse, which was so much cozier.
Nowadays, central heating. In LA, just three hours south of me, my granddaughter played on the beach when she went to Disneyland for a vacation.
Summers here, though, are not enjoyable. 110 or more is standard.
Summers — downside. Winters — not bad, except for the fog.
34 is t – shirt weather for me Laurel. I hate bundling up! I like 110 degree weather too…. I do like it very warm 😀
kitchen table-Southern California.
Esme… I can picture you sitting at your kitchen table… probably creating some sort of yummy recipe to try!
Coming to you from a cold, icy north east of England in a toasty box room/office.
A great post, apologies that I couldn’t help but giggle at you braving the elements in those wellies.
Best wishes to you and yours for a happy and healthy 2011.
HI Terry – England fascinates me!
And its ok to giggle… when I wrote the post I thought really, my readers have no idea…. 😀
office — Rhode Island
Is it warm there Jess?
Sheila, Hi! I can’t relate to that type of cold weather! I live in Central FL on the east coast! I’m reading your blog post from home at our family Mac in the family room!
Barb that sounds so nice!! 🙂
Just north of Boston in my cozy reading room, hearing the oil truck pull up to my driveway ($$$$$$)
I hear you there Marcia.. the oil truck is enough to make anyones heart start pounding faster!
I’m in the library where I work here in Houston, TX. It’s currently 67degrees and humid. When it gets cold here it might freeze.
I love how many people are blogging from the library Julia! 67? I am coming over. 😀
Wow, that sounds absolutely horrible.
I’m in eastern Ohio at the office where I work. It’s 27 degrees out, but sunny.
LOL Carol… I love how true that first sentence is. I really have no ambition to do anything outside this time of year 😀
I’m sitting in my home office in Brighton, MI. It’s 28 degrees here with a few flurries and a promise of snow coming!
You are not alone in borrowing your husbands boots for a quick step out…they are always there and they’re big enough to slip in and out of easily!
I often where his when I step out with the dogs for the last doggie piddle of the night. Gotta watch out for coyotes! Have a great afternoon
Exaactly Linda – who wants to lace up boots at midnight?
Coyotes? Hmmmm….. my cold weather… not so bad.
😆
I’m in my home office in northeastern PA and it was 25 when I was out before lunch. We used to partially heat with an indoor wood stove and I really got sick of hauling wood. Then I got COPD so we sold the wood stove and bought one that heats with propane. Much easier, even has a remote! Otherwise we have electric heat – the most affordable in this area.
My hubby does the majority of the hauling wood and Chance helps… I am just the last one up at night and if I dont fill it on the cold nights it can drop the house temp by 4 am…. and that wakes me up – COLD! 😀
I’m at my office in New York City taking a break to swing through the blogs. I don’t know how you survive temperatures in the negatives… I have a hard enough time with temperatures in the 20s/30s here!
Liz every year my hubby and I say “why do we live here?” The cars are cold… the house is hard to keep warm, the roads are slick, the sky is gloomy….. if it wasn’t for the books… I would go insane!
Oh my, Sheila, that would be way too much for me! I’d probably singe more than a bit of hair. LOL
I’m in Austin, TX (temp 63) in my home office.
Its not always delightful but spring – fall I love it here. 😀
In Nashville, TN, sitting in my new apartment with a corner view window, blissfully alone (kids are back in school). It’s unseasonably cold here and they’re calling for snow today.
That sure is an innovative woodstove. I’ve never heard of it (now I have!). We had an indoor woodstove when I was growing up and I remember it would go out by morning and it was freezing! We used to have to haul and stack wood that my dad would cut and I hated it. I swore I would never have a woodstove again and, so far, I haven’t!
I had never heard of it either Michelle until we got one. I would never have a stove in the house having lived through a traumatic house fire as a teenager but this I can handle.
I loved your post this morning. I live in Ohio and it’s cold here too!! We’ve had a few nice days recently with temps in the high 20s and low 30s. I have to admire you for using the wood stove to heat. That’s a lot of work!!
Canton, Ohio – my office/reading room 🙂
I complain but it isnt too bad Emily… its kind of peaceful out in the back yard at night…. 😀
Central Coast of California- in the bedroom.
I don’t know how y’all deal with winter. If it gets below 60 here, I am complaining like a baby with an incoming tooth. We have a heater, which has never been turned on.
On Christmas day, the boyfriend went and played golf and I took the dog down to the beach for a walk. Still, it isn’t all roses here, the storms have been pretty bad this year and I keep watching the creek behind our house rise and rise, wondering if it is going to flood us out.
Gwen I would love to go to the beach on Christmas – and grill a turkey on the deck… and sit in lawn chairs and read…. some day I am going to make that hapen 😀
Oh my, I don’t envy you filling that wood stove, and here I’ve been whining about our winter in South Carolina. We have gas heat, which I am very thankful for. I am in South Carolina in our computer room.
LOL – just think of me when you think you are cold Kathy 😀 Let that image of me in the big boots, thick gloves, and red nose stick with you…. LOL
I’m at a table I set up in my living room, with about a dozen books spread around me as I posted my Library Loot report a few minutes ago. I’m in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the temperature is currently 37 degrees Fahrenheit, with light rain. I have gas heat.
37 and rain sounds like spring here…. 😀 I cant wait Bonnie! 😀
That sounds awful. I’m in Southern California (Los Angeles) and it’s low 60s right now, but I still have the heat turned up (at the office), and put on a winter coat and scarf when I go outside.
Steph that cracks me up – a coat and scarf at 60 degrees? I would be in a t shirt and capris!
Wow…but…driving in the dark at midnight? Wow…my husband is in Minnesota as I write this…Minnesota is a huge part of his work right now…he is there once a week!!!
Pennsylvania…comfy sofa…tree lights on…under a furry throw…laptopping and watching the telly…
Just to the back yard Patty – we have two driveways… I take the second one and looks back to the stove. Our neighbors are a ways away and quite elderly… they are not going to get me 😀
Your morning blogging area makes me envy you – I had to run to work so no blanket blogging for me but I do love doing that!
Freezing my butt off in PA. We actually have an ancient house that still has a coal furnace so at this time of year I smell like a smoke stack 😦
Oh good Andrea – not that you are freezing – but that I am not the only one that has a “smoky” scent. 😀
North Florida, but it gets cold here – not MN cold, but it can get in the twenties in the wintertime. I lived in MN many moons ago and I am shivering at the idea of the cold temperatures that I remember…
Also, not in home office as I usually am, but am blogging and commenting away from the kitchen. Doggie at my side, cat and hubby on the couch, ice hockey on the TV.
OOH you lived in Minnesota so you feel my pain! You were smart to escape! 😀
Minnesota- wrapped in a blanket on the couch
and Angie – about 10 miles away from me 😀
I feel you, Shelia. Though I do not have to do that to keep warm, i do live in a house built in 1919 that has been renovated a BILLION times. It is drafty and creaky and I’m ALWAYS cold. We were at 2 below last night. I’ve stopped looking.
Over the weekend however I was up north in Hill City and I stayed at a snowmobiling cabin that was made out of cardboard, pretty sure. Yep, 2 space heaters, a heat fan and NO CARBON MONOXIDE detector. Resort?!! I think not, my friends.
I long for the ocean. Why was I born in Minnesota again?
Oh wow – that sounds cold and miserable! Tonight I am actually warm! 😀
I am in Southern Ontario where it is -4 right now, just pressed the switch to turn on the gas fireplace. Waiting for hubby to go to bed so that I can curl up on the couch and start a new book (have to deal with the tough decision of deciding which one to start first though).
Well glad to see there is someone besides us Minnesotans below zero Margaret! 😀
Good luck choosing a great read!
California, sitting on my couch with my laptop. And you just made me sooo happy about my heater. Oh, and it’s northern California, very far from any beaches. But pretty far from snow too.
LOL Cheryl – I am glad to make you appreciate the heater more 😀
Wow that is quite the visual and I am not envious! Here’s one for you. While yes, it may be say 50 and sunny during the day and 40 at night here in San Francisco, our old houses (mine is from 1924) are not built with insulation because ‘it doesn’t get cold here’ and we have a ‘green’ heater that doesn’t blow any heat out. It’s basically a fancy hot plate. So I am sitting on my couch in flannel pajamas with large socks on and a blanket. I have friends that have to wear hats to bed. jealous now? 🙂
LOL – I have yet to wear a hat to bed but thank you for the idea… 😀
Al (Hubby bought me an electric blanket for Christmas… I never thought I would use one but I have used it several times in the last two weeks.
It is almost the next morning.
I am in NE TN and it started snowing this afternoon. It has been a cold snowy winter so far and it is just beginning. We got a new heat pump installed in Oct. but it wasn’t working properly during those really bitter days around the holidays. They finally found the problem, we hope. We have a wood stove in the family room. We keep the heat set on 64 to 66, so it is cool. The wood stove keeps the kitchen and family room warm and pushes heat out to our sunroom which isn’t heated otherwise. My husband hauls the wood in most of the time and I keep the stove cleaned and stoked. Cook on it too.
Wow you cook on it too Pat? That’s impressive! We try to keep the heat around 68 but on those really cold days it is hard to get the temp above 62 so I am chilling a bit in the house.
Meant to mention that my husband talked about looking into a system like yours. Since he keeps a schedule like you husband’s I would be the one to slog out at night and stoke it. We have had bears in our yard at night. I’m not going out there, even with lights. I’ll be happy with what we have.
Good point Pat. In normal weather – when it is 10 above zero (normal for our winters) and higher, the stove works awesome… its the super cold days that suck!
I’m a bit late posting , so I am in a dark living room tv on everyone asleep -should be reading but catching up on blogs. But I live in very cold PA , we did have a bit of a heat wave of 40 which last a couple days now back to freezing but we have an oil furnace so you can imagine how much that costs.
I bet that is expensive Donna! Our heat wave was ten degrees yesterday…. I didn’t have to button my coat! 😀
Glendale…Under my computer, listening to the BBC.
Nice Nik! 😀
In my home office in Ohio. And about to head outside where it’s 14 degrees and snowing. How many days ’til summer?
In answer to your question your Orangeness… to many 🙂
I’ve never seen anything like that (stove heating water pipes) so I have a hard time imagining it. I grew up with a wood stove in our house. It was an old house and the stove was one of those old-fashioned cast-iron stoves you could cook on if you wanted to (we didn’t). I’m glad I don’t have to worry about keeping my kids safe from touching something like that in my house. I’m sure it was a headache for my parents when we were little.
I’m at my computer desk in the dining room. Looking out on the cloudy/foggy day in Oregon. I saw a seagull fly by this morning, so it must be stormy at the coast (they hardly ever fly this far inland otherwise).
It is crazy Alyce – the pipes run under ground and apparently the heat from the wood stove makes the water heat up and it runs through the pipes into the house and to our shop. I dont get all the “hows” but as long as I am warm – I am good with that. 😀
That’s a fun post to read. We heat with wood too but ours is inside. I know the trials of keeping it going! I load it up at 10 pm, then set my alarm for 2 am, fill it up again and when I get up at 6 it’s still good until 7 am when I fill it up, shut it down and it will last until I get home at 3:30! Lots of work but nothing beats wood heat!!
Oh you understand my pain Staci! 😀
Living in Arizona I cannot really relate. We did however have a Freeze Warning last week and we had to cover our pipes outside the house for a few days. We tend to not really ever turn the heat on in the house (I love being cold) but lately I have had to turn it on because my fingers feel frozen and I can’t type. I do wish our home had a fireplace though. Sounds like you guys work really hard to keep the house warm. I may love the cold but I don’t know if I love it that much lol.
You love being cold? That’s amazing Patricia! I even dislike a breeze on me!
Yikes, I am such a California girl (born and raised and still live here) that I would probably never survive a winter in Minnesota. They say Midwesterners are a hardy bunch and I have to agree! You guys have to do stuff that us Californians wouldn’t dream of. We complain when the lows dip below 45 degrees.
LOL Kathleen – we had no choice but to be hardy! 😀
I’ve been to Minneapolis in January. I know exactly why you love summers!
Sitting on my couch in Cincinnati. It is currently 19 degrees here.
Yes Michelle…. all winter long I wait for the signs of spring! 😀