It’s August and I’ve been into the winter prep for a couple of months now. That isn’t to say that I’ve spent the last two months getting our home prepared for the winter. It doesn’t take that long. No, we have a wood stove for heating in the winter. It serves as both an emergency and supplemental heat source for the gas furnace. The gas furnace is relatively new and works so incredibly well. However, when you live as far out of town as we do, there are times when the HVAC professional might not be able to get right to us. Our region is prone to deep snow and freak snow storms that are a bit unpredictable. Thus far, the gas furnace hasn’t even let us down during the winter. But when the power goes out, it sure is good to have the wood stove for heating. This spring, we added HVAC cooling to the central air conditioning in our home. This is a new feature that I resisted for a long time. The fact is that I’ve loved have the air conditioning all summer. Cutting, splitting and stacking all the wood we need is a big chore and one that includes a lot of sweat. So it was wonderful to have that great HVAC cooling in the afternoons. And once the HVAC heating maintenance is done in late fall, the air conditioner cabinet will be the very last part of the winter prep. I’ll simply put a hard plastic cover over it to protect it from the tough winter until we need it next summer.