Depths of Winter

Winter has certainly settled in.  This is one of the coldest winters since we have lived in this house which will be 41 years this spring.  I remember 1976/77 as the worst, but even it was not as consistently cold as this January has been.  My snowblowing now has piles 5' high and there is a drift against the shop door that is 3 feet deep and packed solid.  Back in the 70's I remember Rebecca (my niece) sliding off the barn roof into snowbanks, but it wasn't this cold.  We had very cold night temperatures ( -25C ) back on Jan. 6 - 7 and temperatures hovering in the -18C area until they went down again last night.  I just blew the 30 inches of snow out of the parking lot yesterday and the wind has blown much of it back in again.

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January has also been difficult for my friend of 59 years.  Bill lost his step-father George Tolboom last week. I have known George since I was thirteen when my parents lived on Jane St. in south London.  George had recently married Bill's mom and moved to our street.  He seemed very mature to us; but in fact he was barely thirty.  George was a true gentleman and a person whom I very much admired.  I know he will be missed.

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I have been working on basement improvements for the last three weeks.  As some of you know we pretty much built this house with our own hands and some things were left undone. When I built the stairs to the basement I never got back to doing any more work on that area because I built another stairs into the basement.  In spite of much of the basement being finished, I never did finish off the stair area leading to the fruit cellar.

I have decided to put ceramic tile of the floor of the hall area.  To do this I want to pour floor leveller to make the concrete perfect for tile.  I poured and levelled the basement floor when I was young and crazy and as you might expect it was not perfect.  Hence the floor leveling compound.  Pouring leveller necessitated removing the stairs which is fine because I am adding a new bannister and balusters.  The fruit cellar is being converted to a wine cellar (although it could still be used as a fruit cellar--but not both).  I have insulated it, framed it and changed the door to look more like an old world entrance.  The hot air plenum at the upper left had to be changed to accommodate the new entrance.  I removed 3 feet off the end and rerouted the ducts that go to the dining room.  Eventually that plenum will be covered as will the walls and ceiling.