OK, I have been neating my homes with a woodstove for over 18 years. First in PA and now in VT. Wood IS work. You must cut or have it cut to length, stacked, aged, and then you must bring in the wood regularly to burn. I can heat my home up here with 3 cords that will cost about $135 per cord. About $400 for the entire season! I do have oil as backup and I used 250 gallons last year. That's for hot water and backup heat when we were away. I happen to LIKE wood stoves! I like the fire you see when relaxing in front of the stove. The lazy flames that can lower your blood pressure. A pellet stove has a much too "busy" fire for me. It's like watching an oil burner in action. I like the fact that when the power goes out we will have heat AND hot water as we just put a kettle on top of the stove. I don't have to worry either about pellet prices or if the local stores will run out in February as they have done in the past. My home is 1,200 sq ft. I purchased the smallest unit Regency makes and it does the job quite nicely during a Vermont winter when it goes to minus 20 at night. But a 75,000 BTU stove will be WAY too big! You'll either have the windows open all winter or you'll always have a "cold" fire which causes creosote. My stove is rated for 800 to 1,000 sq ft. We don't heat the bedrooms directly as the heat will find it's way there. We want to heat the living areas. So the small unit does the job nicely. So you may want to look at a stove that heats up to 2,000 sq ft. That's a medium sized stove. And in all my years of using a woodstove, we've never seen a termite.

Wow....I just looked at that recipe with a critical eye.....that will be a mucky mess...it will be something like an egg strata without the eggs...It will be too soft to pack into a rolled pork roast....if you put in 3 cups of milk! I would only add as much liquid as you need to moisten....and that liquid wouldn't be milk but broth. Teh fruits and vegetables sound wonderful together....but then it goes and adds a lot of bread and milk. I'll bet it would be good baked in a casserole though and served as a side.

I ran across this recipe years ago and am under orders from the family to serve it on Christmas day. It is delicious! Note: do not substitute an inexpensive Amaretto in this recipe. It does not give the flavor which Amaretto di Saronno imparts. PORK ROAST SARONNO 3 pound pork roast 1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce 1/2 cup catsup 1/2 cup cider vinegar 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup dark corn syrup 1/2 cup water 1 teaspoon chili powder 1 tablespoon cornstarch 4 tablespoons Amaretto di Saronno Roast the pork in the usual manner. Combine the next 7 ingredients and cook over low heat 5 minutes. Blend cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of the mixture and add to the rest, stirring until slightly thickened. Stir in Amaretto and simmer 10 minutes. 30 minutes before the roast is finished, remove pan drippings and cover the meat with 1/3 of the sauce. Roast 15 minutes and baste the roast with another 1/3 of sauce. Roast another 15 minutes. Make gravy from the drippings, adding 2 tablespoons of the sauce and any remaining pan drippings. I use a can of chicken broth to extend the amount of gravy. Serve remaining sauce with the roast. Serves 6. Note: Before roasting the pork I butterfly it open and stuff it with the common turkey type bread, celery, onion, plus seasonings stuffing then reroll and tie with string. Also, I make this weeks ahead and freeze the roast whole, the gravy and sauce each separately. Defrost in fridge. At serving time I slice the roast and heat gently in the gravy, serve on a platter. Heat remaining tomato sauce to pass. Hint: double the tomato sauce recipe. Everyone loves it and pours it generously over the meat and mashed potatoes.

Hi Petuniafish, I really don't know what to tell you as I am always experimenting myself with light and temperature and watering during winter in a northern climate. I find it hard even in a greenhouse. Each year I think I finally have everything right but it is very hard to keep them all healthy until I can put them outside again in the spring. The last few weeks seem to be the hardest, even with the trees in full bloom and setting fruit. This was a very cloudy winter so light levels were quite low. I keep the greenhouse temperature set to a minimum night temperature of 63°F. The roots should be warm enough to avoid WLD, but I still have it happen with many of my trees, some worse than others. Your cellar temperatures seem quite high and I would think might encourage insect pest problems which I get in the greenhouse at much lower temperatures and higher humidity. Even in the greenhouse I suddenly had leaf drop in late January this year. I thought maybe it was the low light levels. I never had an aphid problem in my greenhouse until this past winter and I have an invasion of them that no matter how often I keep after them I have not been able to get rid of them. I don't find ants either. I have finally resorted to a Bayer Citrus Insect soil drench about 2 weeks ago after removing all fruit and I am still cleaning off living aphids covering the leaves today. Hopefully it will eventually take care of the aphid problem that HO, Neem, soap, alcohol, hand cleanng by leaf, etc could not. They just cover the leaves and really weaken the trees. I can't figure out how they seem resistant to even HO. No scale this year thank goodness, but was plagued by them last year. It seems to always be something affecting our trees. But it is so nice to enjoy the blossom fragrance and pick the fruit. It can be discouraging at times though. I am always searching the net for information but it is very hard to find articles that apply to indoor northern growers. I hope you will continue to have success growing your trees. Cory