With record breaking high temperatures this week it’s been hard to think about the cold and snow that may be just around the corner. We have however we have been taking advantage of these days by getting things ready for the inevitable cold.

Last week my husband cleaned and winterized the equipment we use, lawn mowers, the tractor, the four wheeler and such. He put plastic on the windows in the house, cleaned the chimney and tarred around any openings on the roof. This week his focus has been on remodeling the chicken coop and he finished that up on Wednesday.

He also took time on Sunday to work with me on splitting and stacking the fire would that has been seasoning in our court yard. He used the maul for splitting, while I used our log splitter.

I love our little manual, hydraulic log splitter because it is easy to use, but I can still get a good work out. While my husband is really good at splitting wood with a maul, I don’t have the strength, the eye-hand coordination, or the scientific knowledge required to do this efficiently. On the other hand, using this log splitter requires less strength, basically no eye-hand coordination and while the scientific knowledge of how to split wood is helpful, it is not a requirement. I love the fact that I can get a good arm workout while being productive, and that it is not gas powered, and therefore it does not cost anything to run it.

I finished splitting and stacking the wood on Wednesday.

Thursday, as the summerlike weather continued, so did we. Getting done little jobs that in past years might have gone undone. Basically storing things that should be protected from snow and cold and pruning dead foliage from some perennial plants.

In the above photo, taken last week, the green and yellow feathery looking plants are asparagus. Yesterday I cut them all down since most of the top growth has died off, turning yellow or brown. As I did this I also pulled any weeds that were starting to grow up around the plant. It was a great day for playin’ in the dirt.

I am certain there are many things that we will want to do before the snow flies and the ground freezes, and Lord willing we will have some decent weather for it, but this warm spell gave us great incentive to get a lot done.