We finally went to town, dropped off our trash, and stopped by the post office. It had been so long since we’d picked up mail that we actually had five packages waiting for us, including a book I bought on eBay and two very delayed Christmas presents that had been forwarded from our old address. One of them had shipped on the 22nd, the other the week before, so it basically took a month for Priority Mail to get to our old post office and be forwarded to our new one.
Happily, we received two refund checks from our old insurance company. One for canceling the policy on the truck that was totaled and the other for cancelling the policy on the house we sold. Now we’ve paid for insurance on our new house and my new truck, but it still felt great getting money in the mail, even though we were being refunded our own money. You might ask why the policies didn’t transfer from the old car to the new one, but it is because we moved. Our old insurance company doesn’t write policies in this state so we now have a new company.
On top of this, we received the refund for the escrow on the old house. Plus, the dealer from whom we bought the car mailed us our license plate, so I was able to replace the temporary plate.
Money and presents, one of which included chocolate. It was almost like a second Christmas.
Shelving Units
We officially moved in about six weeks ago, but there is still unpacking work being done. The storeroom was so full of boxes that we were unable to set up all the plastic shelving units. I had assembled 10 shelving units, each with four shelves. We had enough remaining parts to assemble three more. My wife didn’t want to take up any more of the empty space in the store room, so instead of building new shelves, I added a fifth layer of shelves to them. (As you can see in the main photo, one shelving unit has five and the other has four.)
This job went more quickly than expected and we were then able to unpack most of our extra boxes and rearrange things to our satisfaction. I have now unpacked most of my prepping books. There are a few books that I am actually considering disassembling and scanning rather than keeping them on hand and a few that I might just toss. When you prep for 25 years, some of your books go out of date. For example, a book on identifying edible plants is still usable years later, but a book on solar power written in 2005 is woefully out of date.
Improving Weather
We’ve been having cold weather, but the sunshine makes it seem warmer than it is. The snow has melted everywhere that is sunny, which is why we went to town.
Having been inside for a number of days, we donned our thermal underwear and went on a hike. It’s funny to walk around, however. You can go up one mountain and the ground is clear. Then you cross over a ridge onto the opposite slope and the snow is still plentiful. You can also see the impact of elevation on snowfall as you climb higher and higher and the snow gets noticeably deeper.
I don’t know if it is the improved weather and lack of wind or if we just reached a better section of our firewood stack, but the fires are burning hotter than they were a week ago. The temps hit 75 in the basement again and I actually had to close the damper to cool things off.
