I've got wood

Our new heating system is unique in the fact that it uses wood and gives me wood. Revision Energy is putting the final touches on the system today (hopefully!) so we can have a toasty warm house by tonight. There was much to do in prep for the system going in. The biggest chore was preparing the firewood. We're a bit behind on that front since we've been working on the house so much but after a big push on Saturday with Papa Don and myself we now have somewhere between 3 & 4 cord of wood ready for winter. Another weekend of work and we should have plenty for this and next winter. I'm guessing that we've got enough wood from clearing for the house alone to last us a good three years. Good times.

The system itself relies on a super high efficiency wood boiler. It's so efficient that you need a place to store all of the heat (or else turn the house into a 24/7 sauna where fat guys with hairy bellies can sit around and fart and sweat all day) so Don and I built a 650 gallon water storage tank that the boiler will stuff all of the heat into which will then be taken from by both the heating and domestic system. Pretty cool stuff, once it's all up and running that is.

Here is a pic of the tank nearing completion. It included 4" of rigid insulation inside of a steel and plywood box. The whole thing gets lined with an epdm (rubber) membrane and then the hot water coils are added, it's filled with water and an insulated top is put on.

My own foil lined coffin.

The brains of the system. So many pretty yellow handles that I have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what to do with.

Some of our wood prior to stacking.

B and I stacking the wood. Marcy was too busy taking pictures to be bothered with helping.

B actually helped pile for a solid 30-40 minutes. Trooper.

tardy

Not many blog posts lately. Sorry about that but sometimes life gets in the way and you don't have good pictures to post. And really, what good is a damnelsons blog post without pictures??? You certainly don't come here to see my bastardization of the english language with multiple misplaced commas...

With the impending winter, we've been going gangbusters on the house's siding and heating system which has meant that I've had precious little time with the spud recently so whe I found out Marcy had a hair appointment after work of Friday I did what any american dad would do, B and I got take out sushi and went to a playground. I've got culture coming out of my ass.

B and I had a great time and it was nice to see B start to come out of her shell. She's always been an outgoing kid if she's around people she knows but clams right up if others are around. Well, four teenagers raising hell on the playground on Friday didn't stop her (for a change) and some of her timidness with heights seemed to vanish as well. Good times.

B-lated

Ok, so I'm a bit late posting this stuff (about 11 days to be exact) but better late than never (Tania would argue that never is probably better).

the cake, artfully crafted by Marcy. Who says she has no talent???

B in her Fancy Nancy attire.

Waiting not so patiently for people to finish eating so she can open presents.

mob scene

cake 1 (brynna requested a blueberry cake)

cake 2 (yellow cake for those traditionalists -my dad-)

6 girls in the very pink room. I had to leave.

taking after daddy

As I think I've mentioned before, B had lost interest in her two wheeled bike for a while this past year, always opting to ride her trike when the opportunity arose. Well, that all changed when we were at one of my bike races in Orono and then solidified when we made the trek up to Presque Isle for a weekend bike festival. For some reason, the bike thing suddenly clicked (maybe because she was literally surrounted by biking crazy folks)and B couldn't be kept away from her bike, tallying close to 10 hours of ride time in the 2 1/2 days we were in Presque Isle. And ever since then she talks about her bike and riding almost as much as I do and if you've spent any time with me you know that that is a LOT!

Anyway, this past weekend I had another mountain bike race so we asked B if she wanted to be in the kids race. She enthusiastically said YES! but both Marcy and I figured that when the time came she'd change her mind. That definitely wasn't the case and B was eager to throw down when race time came. There were only three kids in the race but B showed her killer instinct by taking the hole shot and leading from beginning to end (Marcy kept her hand on her back but did little in the way of pushing) and even sped up when the second place girl made a late race charge.