Friday is going to be particularly bad. High winds and <8% humidity make for extreme fire danger in the canyons and out onto the plains.
I've got the fence gates tied closed and braced, and anything that can get blown around in the back yard has been removed.
Had a 1/3 cord of firewood delivered today and got it all racked in the garage. I "knew" how much a full cord is, but now I know how much wood is in a full cord.....Three times as much as the BIG pile that was delivered! Didn't have much wind left in the sails when I was done, but based on our past usage, I'd say we have at least two years of wood.
Keep those heads swivelin', and always check your six.
No fireplace here, so the Neighbor gets the branches that get trimmed off of the mesquites. Good smelling firewood.
ReplyDeleteI saved the junipers we had yanked out, and cut them up. Burns great, but holy moly, I wore out the chain on my saw! That stuff is like cast iron....
ReplyDeleteI tend to associate high winds with your area. I'm guessing it's from seeing news clips of semi trucks getting blown over on the highways. How common is this? Once or twice a year? Every year?
ReplyDeleteIt's a yearly thing. We get tremendous winds coming down the mountains, and it compresses, warms up about 20~30*, and blows like you wouldn't believe. Yesterday there were TRAINS getting blown ooff the tracks in Wyoming. Semis I'm used to, but blown over trains is a new one.
DeleteThis has been a strange winter, but Colorado weather has always been unpredictable. The BNSF, operating on the UP tracks, had several double stack shipping containers blown over near Tie Siding yesterday. The High Plains are getting hit hard. The Yuma area keeps getting slammed. Pity the only two linemen employed by the very small local utility company.
ReplyDeleteAround 5 am this morning the screen on my balcony door was being blown around. The magnets down the middle aren't that strong. I keep a couple of bungee cords on the balcony for just these occasions.
We've been here eight years now, and while I've seen some extremes, this Winter both blows and sucks! We need the snowpack.
DeleteRE train blow over. I was wrong on the location. North of Cheyenne.
DeleteYep, strange weather all around 79 here today...
ReplyDeleteIt was seventy yesterday, and didn't break forty today. And we had snow changing to rain.
Deletenearly 60F in NW Indiana (near Chicago) today...
ReplyDeleteAnd I burn about 1 and a half cords of wood in a normal years, sometimes twice that.