Friday 3 August 2012

How do you heat your house?

A few years ago it was necessary to cut this big old tree down. It was interfering with the wind to a windmill close by. When it was felled it landed in this precarious position.
I have been terrified of it ever since.


Whenever we go and check out the windmill, I constantly scream at the kids to stay away from it.


The cattle have been hanging out underneath it.
Rubbing their backs on the wood.
It's only a matter of time!
One will get squashed.
And that would be sad, and expensive (as any loss of stock is)
We have lost cattle with their heads jammed in the fork of trees before.
We are pretty on to making it as good as possible for them to be safe and happy.


I convinced them that it had to come down and we thought it would be great firewood.


Gotta love those Toyota Landcruisers!


Attaching to that bit was a big FAIL, only the branch came away.



Ha! Go to the source of the problem.


Fail again- broken straps!


Fail- no movement.


This was getting very tedious and the kids were getting scratchy.
I had heard lots of creaking and moving around the other side.
I suggested that we put the straps around there where I could hear the stress point.


These young preggers heifers came to check things out.


Of course daughter tried to get a pat.


They wouldn't have it!


The ground rumbled as they ran away.


But we had success, possibly 10 ton of firewood.
The cutting up is always the hard bit.
Well, hardest on hubby's back!


The kids do a really good job of loading it into our big trailer.


Welding gloves are essential.
You never know what might be in those hollow bits.
Snakes, centipedes, mice! 



That should keep us going for a while.
How do you heat your house?
Is the electricity bill killing you yet?
Fires are unbeatable in their warmth and character.
However, I always tell people that they are filthy, high maintenace and labour intensive!
Even loading the wheelbarrow and dragging it up from the woodpile can be a real drag!
There's someone here always pretty happy about a fire!


Stay hot!
xx j


3 comments:

  1. Hi Jodi, come visiting via Fiona's blog, nice to meet you.
    What a job getting that tree down and cut up. I second nothing beats a real fire to warm up a home. Our home here is very cold in winter and boiling in summer, which does work out expensive to heat and cool down, lucky we have a fireplace. So here's wishing you lived closer. Enjoy your day Rina

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    Replies
    1. Hi Rina! Thanks for dropping by. We also have shocking heat in summer and have evaporative coolers, which I am working on changing over to Air conditioning. I think it should work out comparative in costing as with what we have, we pump water out of the bore then the evap unit has a pump in it too. In the real oppresive heat of summer (which can be quite humid here with all of the cotton irrigation) they only work well if we dip in the swimming pool first!

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  2. now that is a trailer! it would come in handy around here...as would it getting it filled with timber. Indeed, the fire does seem to go through a lot of wood, but geez we love it. Messy beast that it is.

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