Preparing for the cold months ahead

It's hard work supervising the leaf rakers, originally uploaded by Rubber Slippers In Italy on Flickr.

What will winter be like this year? I didn't give it much thought until this past weekend while we finished last-minute tasks in the garden and around the house. Ever since getting back from Hawaii it's been sort of like a cloud hanging above our heads: do this, do that, call this person, find a stufa! What's a stufa? It's a wood-burning stove, although these days pellet stoves seem to be rising in popularity if I'm to judge what's out in the displays. We've been wanting to have a stove put in for the past few years but never found one that we really liked until last week! Here's a photo of Dafne (I like that it's a girl's name), complete with a small oven. Hopefully it/she will be installed before the end of the month. I'm already thinking along the lines of roasting marshmallows and hotdogs but also very curious to see if having a stove will make a big difference in our 900€/year heating bills.

One factor about purchasing a stove is that the state gives back 36% of the price (to be split equally in 10 years when you do your taxes), so that gives a small incentive to homeowners. However, this reimbursement deal applies only to stoves that meet a certain energy-saving requirement and that swank fireplace that I loved in the beginning fell way out of line. Sorry Santa, I honestly had your best interests in mind when searching for a fireplace but I'm afraid you'll need to use the front window. Just be careful to not wake the doxie...

Via Flickr:
We spent all of Sunday raking leaves, removing the hail netting, cutting down the useless young fig tree, pulling up old plants and a bunch of other things that were on hold until we returned from Hawaii. The "we", of course, did not include the 4-legged pooch patrol.