Ah, warmth!

[altivo]

Gray and gloomy all day, 34 - 35°F and not budging. The wind was only 10 mph most of the time but it felt bitter. Horses wanted to be outside, so they were. Asher in his new blanket was probably more comfy than Archie, but I went ahead and ordered the same style blankie for Arch as well. Color for that one is a red plaid. They will look like bed quilts when they stand together, I guess.

Forecast yesterday called for an inch of snow tonight, but that seems to have been rescinded. Still felt cool enough here in the house that I cleared out the space around the wood stove and got it going. We have plenty of wood, but I generally resist using it because it contributes to the carbon dioxide mess. Probably less so than if we had a dozen cows like some neighbors do, but still.

Comments

[frith]

I'm fortunate that my power is via hydro-electric generators. As for burning wood, trees grow back and a selective cut in your own woodlot conserves both the interdependent root/mycelium community and the carbon sequestered in the soil. This weekend I learned that Canada has roughly 25% of the world's ground sequestered carbon, but I think nearly all of that is peat in the north. I suspect that exclusively grass fed cattle should be equivalent having bison in your back yard. I think the problem with beef is the sheer numbers of commercially raised cattle and that their diet is grain supplemented (leading to high digestive methane production).

[altivo]

Power here comes largely from nuclear, wind, and solar sources now. My concerns about burning more wood than necessary include both carbon dioxide and particulate output. In fact, one of my horses has heaves and can be seriously bothered by woodsmoke at times.

You are right that we are using a renewable resource when we burn wood, but that's only true if we are conservative about our use. If everyone started burning wood more, our forest resources would collapse quickly. Here we have plenty in our own woodlot, it's true, and in fact the oaks have been dying off faster than we can use them up. But it takes a lot of energy to cut up a large tree and split it down to pieces to fit the woodstove too. (And at my age, doing it all with a bucksaw and a maul with wedges is, well, unlikely to impossible.)

We maintain the stove and a woodpile as a hedge against power failures, which still happen frequently enough here, and at inconvenient times like winter ice storms, to require some plans. Our main heating and cooling runs on electricity, but uses a geothermal resource for both heat and air conditioning, which does cut the power usage considerably as long as the power is on at all.

[frith]

I agree that woodsmoke is an irritant, I hope your horses are rarely downwind of your neighbours' chimneys. I think paper production is causing a greater drain on standing wood than selective firewood harvesting. This morning in the business segment on the radio it was said book sellers are having trouble shelving books due to online shopping -- the paper is going to feed the demand for packaging and boxes, leaving insufficient paper for book printing. Also, unless you cut your own wood, firewood is really expensive. I too have a woodstove as a failsafe in case of extended power failures.