Learning to Make Fire
06 Feb 2007, 05:58 PM | Permalink
Self-sufficiency is an important goal to me, and I value knowing how to do things for myself. However, sometimes I just don't know how do to basic things that everybody once knew how to do.
When I was looking for a farm, it was important that it have its own water supply, a spring or well. So I have a well and a pond and a lake here.
The house came with a modern wood stove, the WonderCoal 6000. This is an efficient wood stove that also runs on coal. But winters haven't been so bad and the baseboard heaters are easy to deal with and you can just turn them on in the rooms you are using so that the bill is less than if you had efficient central heating. The WonderCoal turned into a surface to stack things on top of, and although I had the chimney swept, I hadn't used the wood stove at all in the eight years I have been here.
During this last season, the tomatoes suffered from blossom rot. This is a brown spot that starts on the far end of the tomato. It is caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil.
I could also tell from the sorts of weeds that were growing, like broombrush, and blackberries, that the soil was becoming acidic, which is what happens after adding fertilizer to it for some years (in this case, organic on-farm goat manure.)
The most common solution is to add calcium carbonate, crushed oyster shells, or the like. These involve transporting sacks of stuff by truck and crushing oysters in factories and things that, while organic, are not sustainable, and also costs a lot.
One of the better solutions to both these problems is the one used in the old days: use wood or coal ash. The coal plant used to give away free piles of coal ash, but because of the high mercury content, they stopped this policy. Many farmers in this area replenish their fields by doing burning directly to the fields, but the slash and burn solution tends to only work for a single season and is mainly reserved for handling large grazing areas.
Three years ago, a huge lightning strike hit our beloved ancient tulip poplar and killed the top of the tree. This year, the top 40 feet of the tree fell off one day, leaving an enormous trunk of very dry and seasoned hardwood, and dozens of large branches blocking the gravel driveway. I dragged the branches off and then used the jeep and a rope to tow the trunk into the field.
This convergence of events made me start thinking about that wood stove again.
It took a while to unpile the wood stove, and move the things stacked behind it away. As I piddled at this, the days grew colder.
I didn't like running the baseboards in this very cold weather because they are not efficient at heating things from a very cold temperature. Also, it seemed wasteful to be burning coal in the coal plant to make steam, which turns the steam turbines, which turn the giant generators to make electricity, which is stepped up in voltage, transmitted to our power pole, stepped down to 220V, and then used in the baseboard to create heat which is like the coal originally gave off.
It makes much more sense and is more efficient to burn the coal in the house and skip all those conversion steps, each of which has an energy loss. Or to burn wood, if you have it conveniently lying around and you actually really need the wood ash that would be created from burning it. Obviously this was the Right Thing to Do. Also, I was freezing in the house and noticed that dishwater was starting to ice over at night.
I knew what to do, but was not sure I knew all the tricks. I put some discarded cardboard and crumpled paper and trash at the bottom, then put a bunch of small twigs that I had been gathering from the yard and simply throwing into a pile to rot, then put some logs on top of that. Light the paper, and the paper lights the cardboard which lights the twigs which burns long enough to get the logs started. It actually worked. It took a few hours to get going though and I was concerned the stove was too efficient at burning things slowly, but it finally started giving off some real heat just as it started getting cold this evening. I then placed a large pan of water on the grating on top of the stove which is for this purpose and that will prevent the air from getting too dry.
Now I have something to do with the dead wood, I have a place to put the twigs that continually fall from the trees when the wind blows, I no longer have to throw away paper packaging, I have a supply of mercury free ash for the garden which is entirely produced on my own land and requires no fossil fuels to bag or to deliver, and I can even boil water for spaghetti without having to use any electricity. It seems the right thing to do.
Trog now knows how to make fire. Grunt!
When I was looking for a farm, it was important that it have its own water supply, a spring or well. So I have a well and a pond and a lake here.
During this last season, the tomatoes suffered from blossom rot. This is a brown spot that starts on the far end of the tomato. It is caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil.
I could also tell from the sorts of weeds that were growing, like broombrush, and blackberries, that the soil was becoming acidic, which is what happens after adding fertilizer to it for some years (in this case, organic on-farm goat manure.)
The most common solution is to add calcium carbonate, crushed oyster shells, or the like. These involve transporting sacks of stuff by truck and crushing oysters in factories and things that, while organic, are not sustainable, and also costs a lot.
One of the better solutions to both these problems is the one used in the old days: use wood or coal ash. The coal plant used to give away free piles of coal ash, but because of the high mercury content, they stopped this policy. Many farmers in this area replenish their fields by doing burning directly to the fields, but the slash and burn solution tends to only work for a single season and is mainly reserved for handling large grazing areas.
Three years ago, a huge lightning strike hit our beloved ancient tulip poplar and killed the top of the tree. This year, the top 40 feet of the tree fell off one day, leaving an enormous trunk of very dry and seasoned hardwood, and dozens of large branches blocking the gravel driveway. I dragged the branches off and then used the jeep and a rope to tow the trunk into the field.
This convergence of events made me start thinking about that wood stove again.
It took a while to unpile the wood stove, and move the things stacked behind it away. As I piddled at this, the days grew colder.
I didn't like running the baseboards in this very cold weather because they are not efficient at heating things from a very cold temperature. Also, it seemed wasteful to be burning coal in the coal plant to make steam, which turns the steam turbines, which turn the giant generators to make electricity, which is stepped up in voltage, transmitted to our power pole, stepped down to 220V, and then used in the baseboard to create heat which is like the coal originally gave off.
It makes much more sense and is more efficient to burn the coal in the house and skip all those conversion steps, each of which has an energy loss. Or to burn wood, if you have it conveniently lying around and you actually really need the wood ash that would be created from burning it. Obviously this was the Right Thing to Do. Also, I was freezing in the house and noticed that dishwater was starting to ice over at night.
I knew what to do, but was not sure I knew all the tricks. I put some discarded cardboard and crumpled paper and trash at the bottom, then put a bunch of small twigs that I had been gathering from the yard and simply throwing into a pile to rot, then put some logs on top of that. Light the paper, and the paper lights the cardboard which lights the twigs which burns long enough to get the logs started. It actually worked. It took a few hours to get going though and I was concerned the stove was too efficient at burning things slowly, but it finally started giving off some real heat just as it started getting cold this evening. I then placed a large pan of water on the grating on top of the stove which is for this purpose and that will prevent the air from getting too dry.
Now I have something to do with the dead wood, I have a place to put the twigs that continually fall from the trees when the wind blows, I no longer have to throw away paper packaging, I have a supply of mercury free ash for the garden which is entirely produced on my own land and requires no fossil fuels to bag or to deliver, and I can even boil water for spaghetti without having to use any electricity. It seems the right thing to do.
Trog now knows how to make fire. Grunt!
Reign in the Throne room
05 Aug 2002, 05:30 PM | Permalink
Just painted the bathroom with Kilz primer today. This after months of preparation involving removing layers of painter and plastered over wallpaper and then smoothing over the irregularities with joint compound, waiting to dry, sand, do another run.
Anyway, there's no ventilation in the bathroom and so afterwards was nearly passing out and went to living room and turned on the air conditioner and sat on the floor and started reading a technical book. After a few minutes, it started raining inside the living room. Fun!
Anyway, there's no ventilation in the bathroom and so afterwards was nearly passing out and went to living room and turned on the air conditioner and sat on the floor and started reading a technical book. After a few minutes, it started raining inside the living room. Fun!