Getting prepared for winter

The winters up here in the mountains are usually short but can be quite severe, as you'll probably remember from the images I posted in March. One and a half a meter of snow! My mother in law and I believed we had arrived in Greenland rather than in Italy! It was so bad that Christine couldn't make it to the airport to pick us up because her car had been totally snowed in. So we had to spend the night at the airport Sheraton. But now we're not in the least bit worried that we'll freeze to death. :-) Last week two strong and friendly men came to cut the enormous pile of wood that came from the various trees Christine had cut down in order to give our house a bit more air. In just two hours all of the logs and branches were cut to a size that will easily fit the wood stove we've ordered...

It was very hard work but absolutely worth it. Now we'll probably have enough wood to heat up the house for years. In fact, the toughest job is to collect all the pieces and logs and stack them in the small adjacent building on our property. This used to be a pig stable, hen house and typical outdoors oven but nowadays it's in a pretty derilict state. Nonetheless, it has enough space for all of our wood and at least it will be dry. Just a couple of days more work and it will be done... Phew!

For the moment we're still heating on (expensive) gas, although we're astonished how little effort our heating system must do in order to make the entire house snug and warm. The special state-of-the-art floor heating system we've chosen will eventually save us a lot of money. Even though our garage now more resembles the boiler room of a steamboat... :-)

But the mortgage should be finalised by mid-December and then we'll finally be able to have the wood stove installed in our living room. As it will be connected to the central boiler, the wood will be the main source for heating and hot water. The boiler is insulated so well that it can keep the water at temperature for 24 hours!

And we'll certainly not be on our own this winter. A couple of days ago, in early morning, a family of roe deers came to visit us. Aren't they just lovely?