snow's the word!

Here is the house as it's looked pretty much every day since December second, when we got our first 14 inch snowfall! The snow fell very steadily in December - we had a record breaking 47 inches in our midcoast region! Holy cow, that's a lot of snow! We have the driveway plowed by a great local fellow who is a builder and plows in the winter which is awesome. The snow comes and comes and comes, and then Greg comes and plows it all to the back of the driveway, and we do a bit of shoveling out around the woodpile, car, and stairs. So far, it's not been too bad, now that we are accustomed to it. The first few weeks in the house were scary...is that the right word? I guess it might be. The metal roof sheds snow like mad, but the sounds are all new to us, as we never had snow like this in Washington. The snow piles up and then there is a long, steady "whoooooooooosh" as the sheets of snow slide off the roof and onto the ground. There are other interesting sounds that we are now accustomed to that are pretty crazy...one is when chunks of snow that have iced up a bit at the ridgeline finally start to break off and fall. This sound is much more macabre, and sounds like large bowling balls or at least softballs rolling and bouncing down the roof. Then there is the noise that the snow and ice makes if it finally loosens up from sitting behind the plumbing vent stack after a while...that sounds like a rumbling avalanche! It's crazy! Generally, most of the snow is off the roof pretty quick. We've had no troubles with ice build up, called "ice damming" here, which we were quite worried about at the start of snow season. We don't have the little roof overhang built over the rear entrance to the house (obviously, we aren't using the front door yet!) but the snow sheds fast. Phew. We really didn't like the idea of a large and lethal chunk of iced over snow hurtling down our back at high speed from the second story. That would pretty much preclude finishing the building process.

The insulation works just AMAZINGLY well. Icynene has got to be one of the best insulation products on the market. If you are going to go with an insulation product, it's the best! It's a Canadian product, and who knows about the need for insulation better than the Canadians? Perhaps Icelanders, but we don't have any of their insulation available. For our Canadian readers and friends, CANADA ROCKS! :-) The installer was telling us that the formula used by the company is top secret and the field highly competitive. They keep it under wraps. It's kind of funny to hear a bit about the high intrigue world surrounding spray foam insulation. Go figure!

Really, though, the insulation is fabulous. We are heating solely on wood, and the house still doesn't have ceilings in, and the attic is all open still, so a lot of heat is drifting into areas we can't use. But the fact is, that we are warm and toasty! We've had very cold temperatures since the start of December. We've burned 1.5 cords. That's to heat the whole house. We must be acclimating (or going snow crazy) as we have come to differentiate between cold temperatures. If it's 30 degrees for a high, that's warm. Overnight lows need to be under 10 degrees to be really cold. We don't use the fireplace at night unless it's under 10 degrees at night. We only heat throughout the night if it's 0 or under. (which is has been several times so far). I will say that when the temperature is 0 out at night, it's significantly cold. I mean, that is COLD! We came home from a local singing group (we found some singers to sing with - doing shape note singing) two nights ago, and it was about 12 with a BRISK wind. It was as cold as I've ever experienced. Amazing. Also amazing is that on very very cold nights (that's zero or under) the sky is such an incredible color, even in the dark. We are thinking this must have to do with the near absence of moisture in the atmosphere at that temperature (and the conditions are generally clear, crisp, utterly amazing skies when it's that cold here). The stars are radiant and golden at that temperature, and something about the air just looks different. I don't know how to explain it. Even without snow on the ground, you would be able to look at a sky like that and know that it was an unearthly cold temperature. It's quite awe inspiring really. I don't know if it's the kind of winter I'd like to experience for the rest of my days, but it's beautiful, too.

We are so thankful for the great insulation, though. New England is groaning under the cost of heating oil this season, and we fear that many many people in New England and the Maritimes are suffering from the cold. So many homes here are incredible old homes, but they are badly insulated, and many of them are also HUGE. The cost to heat is crippling for a lot of people. It's terrible. I personally think that the government would do well to start providing big discounts on super insulating with spray foam insulation. That's better than subsidizing oil costs forever, in my opinion. (granted, I don't know it all). Oil is running out anyway, and to be burning it up without good insulation is not only unbelievably expensive, but just flat out crazy in this age of dwindling oil reserves.

OK, more pics to come. I'm glad people are still enjoying the blog! I will start updating it again at last!