Christmas is behind us. The festivities have long ago faded into the snowy winter landscape; it’s only reminder – a slight bulging around the belly area and the bare, ten foot, Christmas tree still in its bucket on the deck, left as a haven for the finches who feed regularly from feeders hanging from its branches.

This Red-Breasted Nuthatch is a regular, and wasn’t the least bit bothered by the tree lights, but it was rather camera-shy and preferred to be photographed through a closed window, making for rather poor definition when the image is enlarged.

The snow keeps on coming. Local folks tell us they’ve ‘…never known it so mild…’, even though the mercury has hit minus fifteen Fahrenheit on the odd occasion. This last week has seen a definite thaw. The icicles have been dripping continuously, but there’s still a few feet of snow in areas around the house.

It’s time to press on with the work at the house. We’d hoped to finish the renovation of the old dining room before Christmas, but other matters took precedence and I’ve still not begun installing the new wainscot. Hopefully, it’ll be completed in the next couple of weeks.

At least, the wood stove surround was finished in time for the festive season…

…and I managed to paint the ceiling and fit its new Crown molding. As the room is to become a place for music and reading, we moved in Trish’s piano and two fireside chairs, to make Christmas a jolly time indeed, despite having no drapes, or covering on the walls.

Tomorrow it’ll all be moved out again and the dustsheets will take over once more.

I can’t believe it’s been six weeks since I last wrote on this blog. Time just flies by at the 100-Acre Wood House .

The snowstorm of November 9th did not prove a precursor to even heavier falls. There have been lots of light showers, interspersed with days when the temperatures were so mild it seemed the green grass might yet reappear before Christmas.

It was not to be. Every slight thaw was followed by a further few inches of the white stuff, sufficient to guarantee a white Christmas.

We’d hoped to finish the conversion of the old dining room, into our ‘snug’, before the festive season began, but problems with materials, coupled with a host of other tasks that arose to stymie progress, meant there’s still no wainscot on the walls, and it looks very much like a building site – which, in fact, it is.

Undaunted, we determined to use the room for its prime purpose over the holiday, so moved in our easy chairs, the piano, and sufficient other furniture to provide necessary creature comforts. It may not be finished, but at least it will be cosy, with the wood stove blazing away in one corner.

A ten foot spruce from our forest, dutifully bedecked with lights, now occupies a corner of the deck (see header image). The bird feeders hang from its branches and a host of nuthatches, bearded tits (chickadees, to our American readers), and house finches feed there each day, totally unfazed by the lights.

We have a four and half foot artificial tree in the living room, fronted by Trish’s model village.

The last week has been spent shopping and cooking. Although we live in America, our Christmases will always be traditional British ones, so the mince pies and scones are baked; the cheesecake is cooling, awaiting placement in the fridge; the turkey is almost thawed, and the port and sherry are absolutely demanding to be opened. As neither of us like traditional Christmas pudding, my own specialty – Apple Rum Raisin Bread Pudding – will serve wonderfully in its place after Christmas dinner.

All that remains is to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas.

Winter comes early on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This year, ‘early’ meant November 9th! The snow started on Wednesday morning and continued all day. In the space of three hours nature transformed the landscape.

By early evening the blizzard had abated somewhat, and at 5.30pm precisely the power went out. I donned cold-weather gear and trudged through 12″ – 14″ of snow to the old poultry house, wherein was kept our one generator that still functioned. Within twenty minutes I’d cleared a path, trundled it outside, and under the makeshift canopy I’d devised next to the wood furnace.

The electric start worked flawlessly and the machine fired up immediately. A quick trip down the basement to the transfer switch and we were once more bathed in light and warmth. Before divesting myself of the winter woolies, I took the opportunity to spend some time outside with the camera:

The power was finally restored about 11.30pm that night. Next morning, it was still snowing. The view from the bathroom window was spectacular…

…and an avalanche was developing on the garage roof.

But, by midday, the sun broke through and the storm clouds dispersed…

…and now, just four days later, it’s almost all gone.

But, if there’s one fact that’s guaranteed up here – it’s that it will be back.

I’d love to meet the Chinese gentleman whose only identity, to those of us in the West, is ‘L22′. I’d love to kick his sorry butt all around the Oriental workplace where he’s employed as a quality control inspector.

‘L22′ works in a Chinese generator factory. He must have been taking a nap when ours came along. Though, he woke up just long enough to slap his sticker, “Inspected by: ‘L22′,” on it as it passed him by.

It doesn’t take much research on the internet to realize the purchase of a Chinese generator is a gamble. Poor quality, shoddy workmanship, and ‘copies’ of western engines, don’t necessarily make for a reliable product.

The problem was we wanted a diesel-powered generator. It made sense. Gasoline generators are cheaper to buy, but consume relatively huge quantities of fuel. A similar sized diesel version was much more economical to run and, let’s be honest, most of the expensive, American-branded, generators are built in China, anyway.

Why have a generator? The previous owners of the 100-Acre Wood House informed us that power outages were a rarity, even in winter. Two weeks after we moved in the lights went out about seven o’clock one evening, and we sat in the dark until almost eleven.

We needed a back-up emergency generator to at least power the well pump and the furnace fan. Nothing fancy, you understand, not one of those huge boxes that sit alongside your house and jerk themselves into life at every minor fluctuation of the mains supply. No, a portable generator would be fine. It could spend most of its life sitting in the woodshed, to be wheeled out and plugged in on the odd occasion it was required.

Winters in the U.P. are renowned for their severity. Not having personally experienced one as yet, we decided it was best to be prepared for the worst. Power could be off for days after a major blizzard, and a gasoline-engined machine would burn its way through upwards of fifteen gallons in twenty-four hours. The Chinese diesel, it was claimed, ran for that long on half the amount the fuel.

It arrived on a big semi-truck and after much grunting and heaving its 390lbs was deposited on the concrete in front of the woodshed. I attached the somewhat flimsy cables to the tiniest automotive battery I’d ever seen, filled the sump with oil, and the tank with diesel fuel, and turned the key.

Once the smoke had cleared and we’d wiped the soot from our faces, it ran remarkably well. I hooked up a few lights, and a fan heater purloined from the bathroom just to give it a bit of load, and left it to run in for a while.

From the house, any noise was barely discernible. It had been advertized as a ‘silent’ enclosed generator, but we weren’t so stupid as to believe the blurb, yet the sixty decibel rating seemed not too inaccurate. Trish and I sipped our coffee, listened to the gentle background ‘purr’, and grinned with smug satisfaction.

Then, it stopped. There were no clatters or bangs, or huge plumes of smoke. Just as though someone had reached out and turned off the key, it gave one long, drawn-out, fart that quickly relapsed into a contemplative silence.

There was no compression. After much back and forth emailing with the U.S. supplier, I took off the rocker cover and discovered the inlet valve tappet adjuster had sheared off. A replacement was sent by expedited mail.

“Don’t worry about the old one,” I was told, “it will have dropped to the bottom of the engine and won’t do any harm.”

Having duly replaced the offending part, once more we took station (this time, well upwind) and fired it up.

“The smoke’ll clear in a bit,” I said, “it did last time.”

But it didn’t. It got worse.

Eventually, we were forced to turn it off before the neighbors called the EPA. It was consigned to the woodshed in disgrace, and another very stern email dispatched to the supplier.

Only the promise of a brand-new engine, delivered free-of-charge, mollified me sufficient to accept the offer without branding the supplier a charlatan all over the internet. The only problem was it had to be shipped from China, so won’t arrive until mid-November.

I was puzzled that, when fired up, the machine ran quite well except for the excessive smoke. It hadn’t smoked before the tappet adjuster sheared, and if the broken part had caused damage, it would surely manifest as a rattle or a clank of some sort?

A quick search on eBay procured me a new Chinese injector for forty dollars. If my hunch was right, I would get me a working generator and a brand new engine. When it arrived, I pulled the old injector and fitted the new one.

It ran fine. No smoke, after the initial start-up, and no clatters or clanks. Our generator was as good as new.

Three days later, a major storm took out the power for twenty-five hours. It happened late in the evening, and was too violent for me to risk trekking out to the woodshed to attempt connecting up ‘Smokey Joe’, as we’d nicknamed the Chinese diesel. Next morning, noting the power was still off, I headed outside, connected the generator, and fired it up. The transfer switch in the basement was activated and power returned to the 100-Acre Wood House.

We had toast for breakfast, the kettle boiled, the toilet flushed, and water flowed from the tap. Warm air wafted from the registers in the floor. Life was comfortable once more.

And so it remained for upwards of three hours. Then, just like before, the generator gave a long, gentle, fart and relapsed into nothing. The pulsing, throbbing, heartbeat of the house died away with it, leaving us sitting in total silence; two faces, each registering the obvious exclamation, “Oh, no!”

It seemed incredible that the replacement tappet adjuster could have sheared off just like its predecessor, but that’s what had happened. Why it should occur is a mystery perhaps only solved when the new engine eventually materializes out of the Chinese mists of time.

Meanwhile, even with a new engine, it was obvious this one would not be considered trustworthy for a very long time, so the decision was taken to invest in a gasoline generator – a sort of ‘back-up’ to the ‘back-up’ generator.

What was needed was a trusted American product. One appeared to stand out from the others – an obvious choice. Around for years, the name had been known and trusted by generations of U.S. citizens.

The product was ordered, and speedily delivered. Within three days it was occupying the concrete in front of the woodshed, while its predecessor languished ashamedly inside.

Once out the box, the wheels and handle were hastily assembled, the surprisingly flimsy cables were connected to a battery whose size was on par with the Chinese equivalent in the woodshed, and oil – supplied by the manufacturer in the exact right amount, unlike its Chinese predecessor – was added to the sump.

Confident this baby would work perfectly from the word, ‘Go’, I hit the self-starter. A loud click, the familiar sound of an engine turning over, but no indication of the healthy roar into life I had anticipated.

Half an hour later, after numerous failed attempts to start the beast, releasing the start-button yet again only resulted in one very dead generator, and a sticky label I hadn’t noticed before staring up at me from the engine block:

“Inspected by: ‘L22′”

^{Note: It was eventually discovered that the gasoline generator had a faulty ‘low-oil’ switch. Once replaced, it ran normally, though to date we’ve had no further outages to test its reliability.}

^{The Chinese diesel still awaits the arrival of its new engine.}

Work at the house proceeds apace. The woodshed is slowly filling up with logs to keep our wood furnace supplied over winter, and we’ve procured a goodly load of well-seasoned timber to fuel the stove in the old dining room.

I’ve managed to finish tiling the stove surround, and have begun work on the edging. Hopefully, when finished, the woodwork will stain to match the floor color. Of course, after that the whole room must be redecorated.

Autumn is well upon us, and with it a number of visitors. The chipmunks are racing around collecting seeds and nuts ready for their winter hibernation. Rabbits have become less shy as they scamper round the yard and gorge themselves on still-green grass and weed, sensing the approach of leaner times.

Deer, usually happy to remain hidden in the forest, are venturing out to sample fallen fruit from our old apple trees. Despite heavy rain, this one paused for a quick pose when I leaned out the window with my camera.

I woke just after dawn recently, and on opening the front room drapes, found a trio of very welcome guests had taken up temporary residence on the front lawn.

Three young Whooping Cranes were busily plucking the fruit from a wild cherry. I rushed for my camera, but had to settle for shots through the window glass as any sudden noise or movement would have scattered these timid creatures.

This year’s fledglings, these birds will soon be flying south to winter on the Gulf Coast. It’s to be hoped the outrageous BP oil spill earlier this year has not devastated their wintering grounds. By 1941, a North American population of well over six hundred Whooping Cranes had been reduced to just sixteen birds. A combination of hunting, specimen taking, and encroachment on their habitat for farming, brought them to the very brink of extinction.

Now, thanks to the work of conservationists, the numbers have risen to around four hundred and fifty. If they survive the winter, these birds will return to the Upper Peninsula next year, resplendent in their glorious white, adult, plumage.

Strolls along the forest trails are especially satisfying at this time. The bug population has virtually disappeared, dense bracken that prevented access to all but the most well-traveled routes has died away, and the trees are taking on spectacular color.

We are reminded of the quote by Albert Camus:

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

Autumn at the 100-Acre Wood House is, indeed, a very special time.

It’s the first week in September and the frost arrived this morning. We woke to a white covering on the trees and lawn.

The wood stove had been installed, but not yet used. I intended to finish tiling the surround before any combustion took place. But the sight of old Jack Frost, through the window as dawn was breaking, proved to much temptation

It certainly works!

Once the frost had thawed it turned into another beautiful Upper Peninsula day. Hot sun tempered by a cooling breeze. The weather is set to stay fair all week, but this morning was a wake up call to the unwary.

The wood furnace has only been ticking-over of late, supplying our domestic hot water. There’s been no need to heat the house. Consequently, its wood supply has been kept low. Last night the temperature dropped to thirty degrees Fahrenheit, the heating kicked in, and by the time I went out to check the furnace this morning it was almost out of wood. I only just managed to throw some more logs on in time to prevent it expiring altogether.

Today, I’ve been felling trees in the forest. Birch, Spruce, Juniper, the wood furnace isn’t fussy. It’ll burn anything. By four o’clock our sturdy pick-up truck had transported two full loads to the wood shed.

Tomorrow, I’ll be out early with the axe, to split it all into sizeable logs.

I had intended to tile the wood stove surround. That will have to wait for another day.

Much of America is still stifled by the mammoth heatwave that’s gripped this nation for weeks. In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, autumn (fall) is already whispering in the early morning breeze as it wriggles the topmost leaves of the skyrocketing birch trees that fringe the forest.

I’ve taken to wearing a light jacket when I head across the lawn to feed the wood furnace. The chill is noticeable, even by eight o’clock on a late-August morning. It’ll warm up later, but another couple of hours will elapse before I’ll swap my long trousers for a pair of shorts.

We still don’t need heat in the house. The wood furnace is just ticking over, providing lots of hot water for washing and showers. I throw on a few good-sized logs twice a day and leave it to its business. Since HeatSource1 was installed two months back, the oil-fired furnace in the basement has been redundant. We’ve not used one drop of heating oil.

This week will mark the installation of our secondary heating source – a wood stove in the old dining room. I’ve been busy building the hearth. A local installer checked out the block chimney that was built many years ago to vent a wood furnace in the basement. It’s long since been removed, but he declared the chimney to be in excellent shape, and as it runs right outside the dining room, is ideal for the purpose.

The hearth is constructed of Durock cement board. Two layers for the base, and one on the sides with an air-gap behind to satisfy the building inspector.

Originally, the room was clad with rough old wood from a barn on the site, nailed to the walls and not even planed. It was impossible to keep clean. Even attempting it was a splinter risk. It’ll all go eventually, but for now we removed sufficient to fit the hearth in place.

Followed by slate tiles…….

And finally the grouting, and wood surround.

I had hoped to complete the structure before the builder installed the stove, but he called to say the job would be done this Friday. Our local hardware superstores are “waiting on the winter stock” of tiles and had nothing left that we liked, so the sides will have to wait. Also, the wood surround has still to be stained and extended, once the tiling is complete.

There’s still much to do, but it’ll be a while yet before the new stove will be required to earn its keep.

It’s been a couple of months since the 100-Acre Wood House blog has been updated. So much has happened in that time it allowed no opportunity to sit aimlessly tapping at a keyboard.

Moving from Illinois was hell, of course. Moving house always is. I defy anyone to say differently. The well-laid plans went badly astray on moving day (Wednesday), when the movers – expected to arrive at 8.30am – failed to appear until 3.45 in the afternoon. Consequently, instead of having a day to clean the house devoid of furniture, it was evening before we could even begin. Any hope of an early night rapidly dissipated. It was two o’clock in the morning before Blow-Up Bertha^[1] – brought down from the 100-Acre Wood House on our last visit – was finally utilized for the purpose it was intended.

We had hoped to get an early start for our five hundred mile journey to the Upper Peninsula, but the late night meant it was 7am before either of us stirred. Then there was the car and truck to load with all the items not trusted on the moving van. 11.30am passed before we finally said goodbye to the Illinois house that had been our home for eight years, and set out for our new life.

Originally, the movers had quoted a time factor of five to seven days to deliver our belongings at their destination. On moving day we were informed they would arrive on the coming Friday at 8.30 in the morning.

Thankfully, the journey to our new home went off smoothly, but it was after ten and fully dark by the time we eventually arrived. I grabbed a torch and went off to find the main power switch in the basement. The house had been unoccupied all winter, and though the plumber had been in the week before to de-winterize the plumbing, I blundered through a number of spider’s webs before the lights were activated and I could finally see where I was going.

Blow-Up Bertha was retrieved from the truck, and after a quick brew of tea we dually inflated her, for what we hoped would be the last time. Tomorrow, our real bed would arrive.

Weary from the long drive, we might have hoped the movers to be as tardy as they were two days previous, but next morning I’d barely set a toe on the bedroom floor before the doorbell jangled and a procession of boxes and furniture began to pour in through the front door. My wife took refuge in the bathroom.

By midday it was all over. We sat amid a maze of cardboard boxes, containing god knows what to go goodness knows where, and watched the removal van disappear down the drive, wondering where to begin, or even if we had the strength left to unpack anything.

It was about six weeks before the final box was emptied, flattened, stored in the garage, and we could really begin to live our new life at the 100-Acre Wood House.

There was much scrubbing and cleaning to rid ourselves of the previous owners. The mailbox, situated on the road at the end of the drive, had not survived the winter. It was lying in the ditch, it’s door missing and pole rotted through. A trip to Menards was organized to acquire the necessary replacement.

When duly concreted into place, it proved so attractive that an old ‘Yooper’ passing by insisted on having his photograph taken with it.

There is still much to do. The house will be an ongoing project for years to come. The deck would definitely not survive another winter without attention. Repair work was undertaken and two coats of woodstain finished the job, turning this –

Into this –

Although we’ve not had time to do much work in the grounds, apart from weekly mowing, the area around the house has been quite pretty this summer. The original owners planted extensive perennial borders, and while they are now well overgrown, the cultivated plants have held their own against wild intruders.

Though the wild flowers of the Upper Peninsula are very appealing, also -

Two new residents recently joined us at the property. One of them is just visible at the right of the image above. Mosquitoes have proved a real nuisance, so we adopted this Dalek-like character a few weeks ago, and he’s been working hard to rid us of the little pests. Day and night he gently hums away, attracting them into his lair with special fragrances, irresistible to all biting insects, to be gently freeze-dried to death. So far, I estimate he’s seen off at least five thousands of the beasts, making life outside the house much more bearable. We call him Arnold. After all, he is an Exterminator!

There’s a much bigger monster lurking near the woodshed. Hidden from the house by lilac bushes it sits quietly, waiting on a time when it will burst into life, belching smoke, flame, and intense heat. That time is winter, for this fiery dragon is -

– HeatSource1, the new wood-fired furnace.

HeatSource1 will pump hot water from its 160 gallon water-jacket, underground through insulated pipes, to heat the house during the frigid months of a Michigan Upper Peninsula winter. Its cavernous firebox is capable of burning logs up to three feet in length.

If there’s one thing we have in abundance at the 100-Acre Wood House, it’s wood.

^{[1] See: “3. Sleeping With Blow-Up Bertha”, Pages, sidebar}

The date is set.

Such a proclamation is hardly on par with the recent nuptials of William and Kate, but nevertheless, for us it’s one of life’s definitive milestones.

The movers have been booked for June 8th!

We have only four more weeks before retirement. Both Trish and I finish work on Friday, May 27th. The plan is to visit the house over the Memorial Day weekend, taking a few articles the movers can’t carry, and hiring a steam cleaner for the carpets – something that should have been done last year, but for one reason or another, was never accomplished.

Right now, the general mood is one of panic. There’s still loads to do at the Illinois house to prepare it for sale, and we haven’t even got ourselves a realtor yet. That is scheduled for this week.

Some supposedly mundane tasks have become crazy problems: like ascertaining the Illinois house is fully insured when we vacate. I’ve discovered that US insurers don’t want to cover an empty property. Emails to our insurance agent (Allstate) haven’t even evoked a response. A not unusual occurrence with Allstate, I’ve discovered over the years.

Given the thousands of dollars we’ve lavished on them in home and motor insurance premiums, you’d think they’d be more caring of our business. Sadly, like most major companies these days, customer service is at the bottom of their list, or, not on it at all.

Consequently, what should be a minor task among the many on the list remains without the tick of successful accomplishment, and we have to search for another insurance company willing to cover the Illinois property when we move.

Watch this space, as they say.

I must make a note to have the 100-Acre Wood House de-winterized before our visit at the end of this month. Nighttime temperatures on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula still dip below freezing occasionally, so it’s best left a couple more weeks.

With the myriad things to do in the meantime, it would be easy to forget.

The much-awaited March visit never materialized. There were two reasons. First, the weather was decidedly chilly (single digit nighttime temperatures) and, though the snow wasn’t a problem it would have been foolish to de-winterize the plumbing and risk finding our house in the middle of a large ice cube next time we called.

The second reason was ill-health. Nothing serious, but both Trish and I were laid out by a mean-spirited virus that kept us coughing and spluttering for three whole weeks. Finally, Trish developed bronchitis and needed antibiotics to clear out the germs. Thankfully, we’re now both on the mend.

I had floated the idea of driving up and spending two nights in a Marquette hotel, calling at the house to check it was okay, then driving back to Illinois on the third day. Trish looked at me like I was mad, in between coughing bouts, and she was probably right. I didn’t even attempt to convince her otherwise.

Our time away from the “100-Acre Wood House” hasn’t been totally wasted. It was decided neither of our cars was suitable for tackling an Upper Peninsula winter. Trish’s 1998 Honda Civic was too small and basic for our needs, and my 2000 Pontiac Bonneville – though fine for summer driving – had already suffered nine years of U.P. ice and snow (I bought it in Marquette in 2009).

We needed a four-wheel-drive truck to tackle that severe winter weather, and for hauling building materials, and all the other stuff required for renovating a seventy-five year old farmhouse.

Trish eventually made the decision to part with her Honda. It wasn’t easy for her. She’d owned it from new and was very attached to the little car. I did offer to sell the Bonneville, but we both knew it was really the one to keep: more powerful, and so much more comfortable if we needed to make any long journeys.

I guessed there’d be floods of tears when the Honda departed, and I wasn’t wrong. We found a superb truck in Teutopolis…..

……. about seventy miles away, and they agreed to take the Honda in part exchange. For a few days afterward, Trish was inconsolable, and I felt like a real traitor. She was so upset, I even considered buying the little car back from the dealer, but only briefly – after realizing how much it would cost us.

Trish’s fine now. She’s been driving the Bonneville to work each day, and I’ve been using the truck. Secretly, I think she’s now coming to prefer the comfort of the Pontiac to her Honda, though loyalty to her old car would prevent her ever admitting to it.

It’s looking more and more like our next visit to the “100-Acre Wood House” will be to await the arrival of the moving van. Tomorrow is the first day of April. There’s only another two months before we finish work forever and make the great trek northwards, on a one way journey to our new life.