Tuesday, October 1, 2019

FIRST FIRE IN THE WOOD STOVE THIS SEASON




Day temps have been in the fifties and night temps dropping into the low forties.    We have been dressing in heavier clothes and been comfortable with the house at seventy degrees; but last night it rained and today the sky has been heavily overcast, with rain expected this afternoon, so the house feels damp.
 

So this afternoon I fire off the wood stove.   The price of firewood has gone up to $240.00 a cord, but oil is $3.04 a gallon.   Our monitor stove can keep our house at a steady temperature but will continue to cycle on and off throughout the day.   However, our wood stove will heat up the house quickly, and since we are well insulated the house will stay warm with just the initial fire.
  

 This is one of the strangest falls I have seen here in Maine.   Usually the color begins with the maple trees gradually turning bright red and orange.  About a week after the maples begin their turn the birch and poplar go to yellow and finally, about another week, the maples are peaking and the ash and other hardwood trees bring on color. There is usually about four weeks of dazzling color.
 

This year the maples colored and peaked in about a week and then went over, well before the other hardwoods started to color.   Now the birch and poplar have peaked and the other trees are yet to turn.    I have lived mainly in Maine since the early sixties, and I don’t ever remember a fall where the color has seemed disrupted.
 


Some years a storm with wind and rain would knock the color down, but that is not the case this year.   September temperatures were all over the place.  Some days near ninety followed by days in the seventies, then warm days in the eighties followed with days falling into the sixties.   Perhaps this roller coaster of temperatures has screwed up the trees seasonal clock.

Oh well, winter is coming. 
the Ol’Buzzard



3 comments:

  1. It's the upper air currents from the jet stream that is to blame. As the planet tilts the jet streams do their northern wiggle causing havoc with the temperatures. This is only going to get much worse as the planet heats up and cools down with climate change. It's like a mean dance that Mother Nature is doing.

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  2. We are in the final days of moving over to propane heat in our big old house. Don't even want to talk about how much our oil bills have been. We have a wood stove, but it's more for ambiance, as the heat doesn't really travel to other parts of the house. But it does heat up that one room in a hurry! Yes, odd fall here, too. I'm surprised that more maples aren't showing colour yet. I think it may have to do with lack of rain through the summer? -Jenn

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