Obama Made a Speech?

Funny, the stock market went up today and they are predicting a thaw in the weather for the next few days. Usually, when that guy makes a speech, the stock market goes down and the weather goes to hell, or so it seems. I did catch something on the news that said he has a new plan for immigration "reform" which, I suppose, means that he wants to let even more Mexicans into the U.S. Was the speech about that?

I'm looking forward to that thaw because my wood furnace is backing up smoke every time I open the firebox door to put in more wood. It does that once in awhile anyway but, when it starts doing it every time, it means that it's time to clean the creosote out of the chimney. I try to do that once a month during the heating season, but I can't do it when the roof is covered with snow like it is now. That's because it's a steel roof, and steel gets really slippery when it's wet or snow covered. That's a good thing, and the reason we had a steel roof put on there in the first place, because it causes the snow to slide off so you don't have to shovel it off. It's got to be thawing, though, for the snow to slide off like that, which is why I'm looking forward to the thaw they are predicting.

We had shingles before we had them covered with steel. A shingle roof is easier to walk on but, if you don't shovel the snow off, alternate periods of thawing and re-freezing causes an ice build up on the eves, which causes water to accumulate under the snow. This water tends to seep under the shingles and, when it re-freezes, lifts the shingles up, allowing even more water to seep in. No good can come of that. When it starts to leak into the house, you have to go up on a ladder and bust up the ice dam with a hammer to let the water run off. By the time you do that, the damage to the ceiling has already been done, so it's best to shovel the snow off before it has a chance to accumulate significantly. I did that for years, but it's kind of dangerous, and I'm not getting any younger, so we finally had the steel roof installed. Now I only have to go up there to clean the chimney once a month, which is better than going up every time we get a significant snowfall.

Do you even know what creosote is? Well, there's different kinds of creosote, but the kind I'm talking about is the kind that builds up in the chimney of a wood burning stove or furnace. What happens is, when the warm smoke meets the cold end of the chimney, unburned carbon condenses out of the smoke and adheres to the inside of the chimney. This stuff builds up in layers that reduce the chimney's inside diameter, causing it to not draw properly so that smoke backs up into the house when you open the firebox door. It can also catch fire under certain conditions, but that's never been a problem for me. The worst thing that I've experienced is when the creosote builds up to a certain point and then flakes off, falling down the chimney into the elbow that connects the stove pipe to the firebox. It's not hard to rake it out of the elbow with the poker but, if you neglect to do that periodically, it will block the elbow off. No good can come of that. Even if you clean out the elbow, there is still that restriction caused by the stuff that hasn't flaked off yet, so it's best to clean the chimney when you start getting excessive smoke backing up.

Ah, the joys of rural living! You city folks don't have interesting things like that to keep you occupied throughout the winter, which is probably why the winter seems to pass so slowly for you.