Maine Winter 2012

All I can say is that this winter has been a good one for sure. We have spent this one at camp, have not burned one stick of hard wood, no big snow storms so far and love being here. I have wanted to live here year round since the first year we bought the place, 1997, but because of work and the fact we have to plow 5 1/2 miles to get to the highway, we have always gone back to town and spent the winters there. This winter has been a dream come true. I feared being snowed in and not being able to get back to the highway for weeks at a time! Not this year. We have not had any big snow storms to date but we have had rain. Lots of ice. I think the ice is scarier than the snow now that we have lived here. We waited 3 days for the men to get in touch with the people who do the winging back and sanding. Then they only sanded very lightly. We now have ice again due to the melting and refreezing the past 4 days. Predicting a heavy wet snow for Friday/Saturday. Hoping the men get off their butts and make the call so its sanded tomorrow. We will not be able to move the snow if there is no sand underneath. And thankful that we have studded snow tires on both vehicles! It has helped a lot on the ice when traveling to and from town for food. I also think that being a retired person now I fear a lot of things that 20 years ago would have just been a new adventure! I am so glad we took this adventure this winter!!!!! (I need to clarify that there are many people staying here year round now and we all have pickup trucks with plows...I made it sound like we are alone up here and we are not! We all work at the plowing each storm. )

This is the first year since the late 70's that we have not burned wood! The cost is so much more then expected, but the baseboard heat is worth every penny of it. We have been toasty warm and the temp is controlled in each room....nothing like at home with burning wood daily. Hubbys back injury has been the reason for the new furnace here at camp. I am pleased with it to say the least! At home we would burn about 5/6 cord of hard wood plus a 100 gallons of oil for the hot water tank. Here we are burning less than 90 gallons of propane every two weeks. The insulation has done its work too! We have what some call a crawl space under the camp, but it is a particle foundation on a floating slab. We had that heavily insulated this fall so this has helped with keeping the heating costs down. Since we have our water pipes and tanks underneath we had to heat it. (I am scared of the heat tape most people use on their pipes on trailers) So baseboard there with its own thermostat has really worked out wonderfully. No complaints in that department!

I have done a lot of knitting this winter, but not like I did years ago. My hands hurt now due to old age and I find my attention span on knitting is not like it was either. I love to knit but I find that I want to do something else a lot now. I have been good about finishing up each project before I start another one...no more 50+ WIPs laying around any more. LOL (Is that my old age telling me to make sure its done cause at this stage of the game I may not wake up to finish it?) LOL I do have a lot of yarn and patterns all bagged up and ready for me to knit. I like that part! I buy the yarn and pattern, photocopy the pattern so I can write on it as I knit the project, put it in a zippered bag that I have saved from purchases of sheets or something that is big enough to hold all the stuff and put it in my big covered plastic container! When did I become organized? I do not know! Hoping to start my DIL sweater soon. It will probable be a summer project...one when the black flies are out and I can't stand them and will spend the days inside till the heat kills them off!! Oh and fishing season this summer will take away from my knitting too. I love to take out my little row boat and row around the lake. And last year we bought kayaks...so that will be something that will take away from my knitting time too! Cant wait to head out with my girlfriends and paddle the rivers and lakes with them...and I might even invite Hubby to come with me! We shall see. He isn't a long distance paddler due to his back injury so we just go around the cove here..but when the girls call, I am off and paddling like I love to! Summer hurry up and get here please!

Hopefully I will post some pics in the next few days of my last pair of finished wool socks and the snowmen Hubby and I made while out on our daily walks! We even took one day to color them all with a spray bottle and food coloring! Life is good at Cedar Lake!

KNIT ON!