2023-02 Planning and Study
It’s pretty cold outside
Snow Clearing
Last year we kept the snow away from the house. perimeter and were able to keep up with the snowfall sliding from the roof. This year snow slid off in the night before a super-cold night. This is bad because it forms into a large rock-hard pile.
The snow that comes off the roof can be thick and fluffy. More often it is a hard compacted mix of snow and ice layers, depending on the temperature and conditions. As a result layers of hard snow and ice fall off and build up in piles. It becomes hard enough that a pickaxe will bounce off it. The snöslunger can’t touch it. Thus it isn’t worth fighting unless the access is critical.
As such we admitted defeat this year for the immediate non-access-essential house area. It would become un-clearable until April.
Swedish Study
I spent most of February doing Swedish practice and working. Without daily Swedish conversation in a workplace or similar, it feels like slow progress. Two tutor-led tutorials per week are enough to far outpace my ability to learn in my free time. I’ve also found it hard to find the right study style.
I did have an inspirational talk online with an old revision partner. They had been out of work and learnt Swedish by studying 12 hours a day. They used YouTube listening and copying and translating internet new articles. It took them 6 months to pass a test they could use for getting a job as a nurse. It’s a very different style from the language-rules-driven study method.
Sometimes I found it awkward doing family catch-up calls because it felt like I had been doing work, language study, and nothing else.
Solar
The new vertical solar panels on the side of the garage were working great in poor conditions. They were outperforming the much larger roof installation. There is not much sun in February but this gave me high hopes for later months. I suspect we can achieve daily-energy net-zero much sooner this year. That date would be the date when we are first generating more electric per day than we consume. Even achieve energy net-zero across the year might be achievable.
Energy prices over winter were high due to Russia switching off natural gas supply to Germany. The gas shutoff was causing more electric heating demand. Sweden electricity prices had thus risen due to the resulting demand in the EU. It was also a bit colder than last year. Lastly our electric usage was higher as we were heating the garage this year. We now have a car so we heat the garage to keep the car and garage contents above freezing. The new air-source heat pump in the garage was working great and keeping the garage at 4C over winter. This is a split air conditioner type and not considered an ASHP in the UK due to UK related grant conditions.
Photography
I was trying to practise with the camera that I got before winter. I had set myself a target for putting photos online each week. I took it with me on walks, when cycling, and practised on the birds coming to the birdfeeder. It was quite hard in February to find new things to photograph. It was harder to find daylight in good weather and a subject that wasn’t snow. This meant only on the weekends as work hours take up all the daylight.
Going out
Part of surviving a long winter seems to be about enjoying it rather than suffering it. So we were good about going out for walks each evening and I went out cycling. I have spiked tyres on the mountain bike. These grip well on the thick ice that covers the roads.
Cycling below freezing is fine but needs preparation. If it gets near -18C or lower then I will avoid going out. The wind chill of freewheeling down a hill into a headwind can make the effective temperature a real problem. For example at -20C with wind and cycling down a hill an effective -30C or lower is possible. That cold will find any gaps in your clothing and helmet.
Hobbies
My partner was getting further into experimenting with cooking. She made lots of bread, cookies and pizza. There has also been a lot of crochet going on.
