The first snow of winter

This week: Losing heat; Picking potatoes; The Winter Solstice;

A week from now Christmas will be over and two weeks from now we will be into 2025!

Are we ready yet? I hear a resounding “NO”…

I like the discipline of looking back on a Saturday afternoon, recounting what I have or have not achieved. This week, it does not seem much, although I have spent all week doing it!

I did spend a good proportion of Sunday and Monday working on one of my history projects and sorting the information I have scanned into useable data.

From this I have been able to positively identify one officer who had his photograph taken 120 years ago, but he didn’t have a name, just his collar number – 101.

This is Hull Constable William John Hunt. He joined the service on 12th December 1894 and died on 31st January 1911. I feel it is important to try and add names to photographs because it personalises them.

There have been a couple of shopping trips and a visit to the vets for the annual flu vaccination for one of the felines.

More firewood has been cut for the winter, some more weeds have been removed, before they had the chance to go to seed and of course there is the ever present and continuous maintenance jobs around my home.

After a storm on Friday night, there is a light dusting of snow on the very top of the Dinaric Alps, some 70 km away on the mainland. St. George is the highest point in the centre of the photo, at 1762 meters or 5781 feet and all around is the Biokovo National Park.

This is the first snow of winter.

All in all a very standard week…

Losing heat

I noticed this week that the central heating was not getting as hot as it should, despite burning copious quantities of wood in the wood stove.

Then on Thursday night when I was putting more wood on the fire before bed time, even with the flue fan on full, I still had smoke coming out of the fire into the dining room.

I have had this before and it is usually a sign of a build up of Creosote clinker in the flue pipes.

The following morning when I opened the 90° elbow outside, it was full of glossy, creosote clinker.

Once removed, the pipe looked more or less normal again.

My flue is far from ideal having two 90° elbows. The received wisdom is that there should be none at all. However this is as I bought the place.

I decided I had better look at the internal joint and the air heater. Once removed outside I found there was some build up inside, but nothing like the amount I had found in the outside joint.

While everything was getting a good service, I removed the intumescent rope seal which fits in a groove around the door.

Measuring the groove and the strip I removed, I went into town to get a replacement.

Once again Island-itis came into play. I needed a 7.5 mm diameter seal. The ironmongers only had 5 mm or 10 mm in stock. I decided on the 10 mm because I thought it would squash flat and the 5 mm looked way too thin.

I also wanted the adhesive that you use to fix the strip in place. Last time I bought some strip, it came with adhesive in the pack. This time there was none.

Presumably it is that clever marketing ploy to get you to pay for a bigger tube than you need, then next time you need the adhesive, it has gone hard and is unusable!

The shop didn’t have any, but suggested using high temperature silicone. I had some in the workshop.

I fitted the strip with silicone, then held it in place with small clamps.

When I tried to shut the door, I couldn’t because the strip wouldn’t compress.

So it was back down to town to get the 5 mm strip, before the shops shut for the day.

This has worked up to a point, but I need to get some of the correct diameter strip, however I will buy it on-line…

Picking potatoes

This week I noticed that the leaves on my Sweet Potato vines have turned yellow. This means it is time to dig them up.

I planted them in the spring, however the baking hot summer and lack of rain meant they really only started to grow properly in the autumn.

The tubers are not especially large because it was so dry and I didn’t irrigate them. That said, I have harvested enough for a few meals.

This variety is especially sweet and juicy.

The Winter Solstice

Well, we have made it to the shortest day of the year without much in the way of drama or trouble.

Today is the northern Winter Solstice, that longest night of the year, but once passed we begin to head towards summer.

Sunrise here is at 07:23 and sunset is 16:22, so just a fraction under nine hours.

However for me, because of the hills immediately in front of my home, the sun in winter does not put in an appearance until 08:45.

At 12:45, it disappears behind the pines, so I have just four hours of sunshine and in parts of the orchards, there is no sun at all.

It is the time of year when the curtains are closed early to keep the heat in and the dark out and everyone looks forward to the lengthening days of January, even if it is often the coldest month of the year.

Before then of course it is Christmas. Wherever you are in the world when you read this, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you Seasons Greetings and hope the holidays will be peaceful and happy. 🎄  NCG