The past several months have been spent enjoying the farm/lake/cabin with not much going on in the way of construction. Its really nice to have the cabin building project 99% done.
After a warm fall we are now having cold winter weather (lows in teens and highs in 30s). This fall we put insulation in the floor joists, 12" thick and R38. Also new this winter is a ceiling fan to move the warm air from the vaulted ceiling down to the floor level. With the addition of these two changes we are finding much warmer floors and much easier to heat with the fireplace only. We have already burned a cord of firewood. We use Osage Orange firewood. Osage Orange, called hedge in this part of the world, is a tree not known to much of the country. It is mostly considered a trash tree around here and is very prevalent - there couldn't be a better tree for producing heat as it has about the highest heat value of any firewood.
We had a painting project this fall to add some bar stools to the new outdoor bar. I put my wife and grandkids to work on the project.
