The Cool Vintage Wood Stove and more!

For Christmas We Got Heat!

My mom new we didn’t have normal heat here in the South, we have a propane heater on the livingroom wall.  It just really costs a lot of propane to use that.  We cannot usually afford to have the big tank filled so we try to only use 2 or 3 propane bottles per month.  You know the kind that you put under the Gas BBQ Grill.  They are around $20 a bottle and we buy 10 of the through the winter, we use the oven too.  Now do not get me wrong, it’s cold sometimes, but nothing like when we lived up in Michigan.  We manage and all have a little heater in our rooms and the bathroom.  We have a good size place so I closed off one whole door because we only use the room for storage of some junk, I would be hoarder if I didn’t have a kid.  I won’t lie lol for real.  I keep everything, I have been called a pack rat from a young age.  I save things, I cannot help it if it’s from a moment it just means something to me.  I played hell trying to get rid of the first 7 years of my sons stuff and to only keep a few things.  It was like losing someone! I don’t understand why my mind works like this, but I conquer it and get rid of stuff.  

Anyways I closed off that doorway with a huge quilt so we can still go in there, we just have to push it aside.  My other idea was plastic over the whole door, but I thought naa we still need to go in there sometimes.   This way we could still walk in there with no problems.  So this new cool Vintage Wood Stove mom got us is nice, but it really didn’t do much in the livingroom.   It’s a large area out there the livingroom, diningroom and kitchen are all connected and pretty much open to each other.   The heater works great in our room.  I love that it has heat coming off of it, but what I really like is how it looks.  It adds a nice touch to our bedroom at night time.  So Thanks Mom! I linked her name to her blog she has her own blog up and running too.

I can say that I do miss having a furnace and these lil heaters suck to have running.  I miss vents that heated the house and floors to a nice temperature.   I do not miss the snow and Michigan cold though!  I also don’t care much for the Summer’s here, it can be so freaking hot!   We had warm summers up in Michigan, but they were never like here!  The bugs are horrible too, especially in mid summer.  There is everything out there from bee’s, flies, gnats, horse flies (huge ones), wasp’s, mud daubers (they build all over our porch),  spiders oh my gosh the spiders! Oh I cannot forget one of the worst of all FIRE ANTS! I have been bitten up multiple times since I have been here.  Fire Ants are absolutely horrible! My first experience was when we had what we thought were chickens, they were roosters you can’t tell until they start to grow feathers.  Remember I was a city girl from Michigan too, so I wasn’t really sure. I just knew I wanted chickens within the first 2 weeks of being here. I bought 10 of them because I did think what if some were chickens and some were roosters? Then I’d be good to go, right? Well named them all we had Poultra and wow I can only think of one other name Jailbird.  It was Jailbird who brought my first Fire Ant Experience, I couldn’t find him in the yard and something had been killing and dragging them off.  I kept them closed in a yard and they never jumped out and at night every so often one would be found outside of the yard ripped to pieces.  I was upset about this, but what could I do? I lived in the wild basically now, a rural area, that had lots of animals roaming around.  Well when I couldn’t find Jailbird I looked all around the yard and noticed something black and white off to the corner of the side of the yard against the house.  He was stuck between the wood and the skirting around the bottom of our home.  What I didn’t see were the ants in his feathers, he’d been there a while too.  He had a pile of poop under his butt that was tall enough to touch his butt. Now I went out there daily to feed them and play with them.  Especially Jailbird he was my favorite, I loved them all even though they were mostly mean.   

I carried my Jailbird into the house holding him against my chest like I would a kitten.  He wasn’t mean to me though, I think he liked being stroked on his head and his back.  I was laid back on the couch with him in a nesting position on my chest and I started stinging all of the sudden on my chest in all these different places. I got up put him out on porch and freaked out, because I had Fire Ants all over my chest biting me.  It is horrible to be bit by these little nasty bugs.  They itch and sting so bad and mine look like little white heads that get really red around them.  They are horrible if you break the little white head oh my gosh it burns so bad, it’s like a broken blister that get’s touched.  

The second time I experienced them was when I was helping some family move from one place to another. I walked up to the porch next to the steps, never thinking to look down.  The someone says umm Shannon are you standing in that Fire Ant hill? I’m like no, I look down and all at once I start getting bit all over my ankle and foot.  I had a ton of them bites all over, I was so upset.  That same day while we drove to my moms house I get stung in the inner elbow by some kind of little bee and get bit by a spider later that day.  All in all it was a horrible day and I’m so glad it’s just a memory now. It was a learning experience that’s for sure and what I learned was to look down when I walk outside lol!  

My post went from a Vintage looking Woodstove to Fire Ants lol Sorry I do that sometimes.  I love writing so I just spew out words sometimes crazily! 

What do you like/dislike most in summer or winter time where you live?