After jumping though many hoops we are now the proud owners of a cabin in the woods of West Virginia! Roughly it takes about 4.5hrs to drive there from NJ. There is plenty to do to make it ours and we are taking it one step at a time. This may sound stupid but we didn't realize how big 20 acres was until we walked it. We did the perimeter walk and it took a few hours, we found many different types of tress, a tiny bit of water, and lots of hills and valleys.
One of the first things we did was to replace the wood stove with an awesome soapstone wood stove.
The idea is that the heat flows through the stone and then heats the room and after the fire is out the stone is very much hot and continues to heat the room.
This past weekend Lori spotted a bald eagle flying over the horse farm behind us. Also, even though we didn't see them we heard a group of wild turkeys making a ruckus close by. You would think being in the woods we would see a bunch of squirrels but we only saw one fox squirrel, but it was big!
Weather wise it seems to be just a bit cooler at the cabin then in NJ, also the wv weather is about 1/2 day ahead of NJ. This past weekend when NJ was getting 45 mph wind gusts we were getting up to 60mph gusts the day before. (according to my weather station we only hit 35 mph)
One of the things we learned fairly quickly is that in the country in late fall the bugs of the area try to enter and spend their winter in your home!
These paper wasps have a ridiculously painful sting. We both should know since we each got stung in our 2nd night, not nice at all! (see once we start up the wood stove, it heats the entire place and the wasps wake up and slowly slumber around)
This little gismo is placed in the corner of a window and inside is sticky tape and the flies get stuck.
One way around this is to have your exterior sprayed with insecticide in October to stop them from trying to enter. (we plan to do this) After speaking with a full time owner close by (5 miles) she explained this is a very common issue with homes here and that the spraying will be very effective.
Another fun thing we came across is with well water you have a well mate. The mate's job is to create air pressure in your water pipes to give you water pressure at the faucet.
And this little busted up switch to the left tells the tank what air pressure to keep in your lines. Well I tried to fiddle with the bolts to increase the pressure and I accidentally shorted the system, leaving us with no water. Bad move and my part! In order to fix this we almost had to drive 1hr one way to home depot to get a replacement switch. Luckily the in-town tractor supply place was A. open and B. carried the $16 switch. (20 min. drive one way:) I hooked up the new clean switch and crisis averted!
Once we are all settled in we hope to have everyone up for the weekend to spend time, kick back, and relax!
Cheers!
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