Toasty (or soon to be)

Yesterday Art finally finished installing the wood stove! Well, the inside part, anyway- he still has to install the outside chimney. We decided to put the wood stove in this year for several reasons:

1) Our house is old and expensive to heat on propane

2) Art traded a refrigeration unit for a wood stove our neighbor had sitting in his barn

3) Art traded a few hours of work for two 70' auger pipes (what they use to transfer corn/beans from a tractor to the grain bin) that he will use for the outside chimney (an 8" and a 10"- it will be doubled walled and very safe)

4) The north side of the house is always so flippin' cold

5) A friend of ours rents land that has a 'bush' (Canadian for a 'heavily treed area that's not quite a forest') and it has several fallen oak and hickory trees that Art can cut up (We don't like the idea of cutting down trees, but we figured if they were already down naturally, why not?)

Two years ago we installed a corn stove (when corn prices were lower- but now Art trades hay with a neighbor who has corn) and it does a great job of heating the entry way and living room. But we spend a lot of time in our dining room and it's always so cold on that side of the house. We had thought about putting in another corn stove on that side of the house but then Art acquired all the necessary things for a wood stove and the free wood was just too good to pass up.

Art should be able to put the chimney up in the next few weeks...hopefully. It may have to wait until the ground thaws a little because Art is going to anchor the pipe in the ground and brace it to the house- that way we don't have to cut holes in our brand new roof.

The corn stove (fancy stone tile made by yours truly)

The wood stove (fancy tiling, again, made by yours truly)

One of the trees Art cut up