The other day I pulled this picture off one of the trail cameras:
Hubby and I looked at each other, and both agreed that that seems awfully early…..either he’s going to have a big rack, or we’re going to have a bad winter……
Then yesterday while brushing down Apollo I noticed that he’s already growing back in his undercoat……..and he’s not the only one, every Tibetan Mastiff owner I’ve talked to has said the same, the dogs had a long extended shed, and now, before they’re even done shedding, they’re growing back in their winter fluff……
This does not give me warm fuzzies for the coming winter…..
I’ve noticed the same thing with the feline contingent here at The Manse – their undercoats are already starting to thicken. Also a lot of vegetables at the local farms are running late (the endless rain hasn’t helped) and the crickets that we normally start hearing at the end of July haven’t started their nightly serenades.
I have a feeling August is going to be more like September, weather-wise. This may indicate an earlier onset for winter and a harsher one. I plan to lay in an extra cord of firewood for the winter and get it all stacked before the end of September. The Manse is also going to get its pre-winter maintenance done earlier, too. (The chimney sweeps have already been scheduled for the end of August rather than the usual end of September appointment.)
Does anyone want to tell me about Global Hotcoldwetdry again?
Seriously….
Yah, hubby and I were discussing our firewood situation…..we’ve got several cord left over from last year, maybe a 1/3rd of what we bought. We HAD been thinking we’d just buy a couple more cord and work from there, but now we’re thinking we might buy our usual amount after all….
Normally we have 3-1/2 to 4 cords of wood put up for the winter, though there have been a couple where we’ve used almost 5. I think this coming winter is going to be one of those 5-cords-of-wood winters (though I hope I’m wrong). We have also done a pre-buy for propane, something we’ve never done before.
We normally use about 400 gallons of propane in a year, but we have had one winter where we went through over 800 gallons, about 600 of those used over the winter. (Propane is used for our furnace, water heater, and backup generator. While we’ve never used more than a few gallons to run the generator at any one time, I want to make sure we have enough to last a couple of weeks of continuous use should the worst happen.)
Our furnace runs on kerosene, and I’m drawing a blank on how much our tank holds, but its still 3/4 full after last winter. But we used a good 6+ cord of wood to do that…..wood’s cheaper, so its worth it.