Chop Your Wood And It Will Warm You Twice

I found this of interest this morning, and thought perhaps someone else might as well.
From "The Farmstead" book,

"The most common measure of firewood volume is the cord. A standard cord can be described as a well-stacked pile of logs, 4 feet high by 4 feet long by 8 feet long. Since few people burn wood in 4 or 8 foot lengths, most sales are a face cord - that is, a 4 by 8 foot face, cut into desired lengths. A face cord of 16" long pieces is really one third of a standard cord."

Later on in the same article, the author continues with this advice,
"Most wood species will not burn if freshly cut, so the wood you purchase should be reasonably dry, or "seasoned". The surest way of having dry wood is to purchase it several months prior to using it. Splitting logs hastens drying. Split logs or small round logs should be stacked  outside under a roof for 6-10 months before burning."

I remember many years ago, when I was a teenager, we burned wood here. There was one or two places I lived after I left home that we also burned wood. That old saying that "chop your wood and it will warm you twice" is accurate. I remember splitting wood being a lot of work, then stacking it, then bringing it indoors, and then finally clean up. Not to mention keeping the fire a reasonable size, minding the chimney, keeping the chimney clean, etc, etc. But all of that being side, besides the mice that inevitably got indoors, I enjoyed burning wood. It smelled good, it was good exercise, and it was relatively inexpensive. Wood is a renewable resource, if managed correctly. And if you're lucky enough to own a wood lot, it can be source of income for those industrious enough to eke out a living from it.

Have you ever burned wood in a fireplace or woodstove? Do you plan to do it at some point in the future? Tell me what you think about burning wood as a source of heat in the comments!

Coming up next, what wood burns best, wood stoves and their history and the future of burning wood.

Beat The Flood! Take That Power Outage!

Do you still have spring in your neck of the woods? Or maybe it feels more like summer? We're still enjoying mild spring here, and while there is a part of me that is worrying about August, I love being able to be warm in these last few days of March. All winter, I've been doing research into extending my growing season; both being able to start early and finish late, and have the veggies survive this. The other day it occurred to me that if we're this mild now, what about August? Some veggies bolt in heat, so then I began to wonder if I shouldn't be looking at ways to keep my veggies from baking in the ground! We're getting pretty good at thinking outside the box around here, and we certainly can't afford rows and rows of shade cloth, as much as I'd like to. So on a walk one day, I got to wondering what could be acquired inexpensively for a person such as myself, who is trying to provide relief for hot plants.

In every thrift store I see sheer curtains. I myself have gotten rid of a few in my time. But I wonder now if they might be sewn together, even by hand, and then rigged into some fashion of row cover. A frame could be built fairly easily from small saplings, cast off branches or the like and then the homemade row cover applied over top. But how to keep those sheers where you want them, and not off  into the next yard or the swamp? Hose, cut into 4 or 6" lengths, and then split lengthwise, can be used as a poor mans clamp. Again, there are lots of thrift stores out there that may have hose, or even something similar that sparks your imagination. Think outside the box. Think repurposing. Think, 'how can I use this to keep it out of the dump?'
Now I'm not proposing you become a pack-rat, just start thinking of the things you see in a new way. The more we can keep out of our dumps and landfills, the more we can use what's already been manufactured, the more money we'll save.

What kind of spring weather do you have where you are? Is your area susceptible to violent spring thunderstorms? Does your area flood frequently? Are you  at the mercy of road traffic? Do you have frequent power outages? Now might be a good time to go poke through your cupboards. Go ahead, I'll wait.

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Ok, now that you've done that, ask yourself, 'if I was cut off from the grocery store, would I be able to eat for three days?' Think about what you like to eat. Do you eat out more than at home? Do you excel at box meals that require only a microwave? Let's think outside that box for a moment. Even hamburger helper can be broken down. It requires meat, ok, but the price of beef is going up, we don't want to break the bank cooking at home. Do you have access to ground chicken? You can mix ground chicken and ground beef, or use only ground chicken if you'd like. There's very little taste difference anyway, at least with store bought meat. So you have meat, now think about your favorite pasta. Egg noodles? Scoobi pasta? Elbows? Bow ties? Whatever your favorite, that's the one you want to get. Next, you want to get a can or two of your favorite vegetables. Peas, carrots, corn, okra, beans...whatever your favorite veggie is can be dropped into your special dish. Don't forget to get a manual can opener! An electric one won't do much good if your in the grip of a four hour long power failure and you're hungry! So that's one idea for dinner. But what if you live in an apartment, like me, and when the power goes off, your stove won't work? That's a whole new level of creativity. Can you operate a small camping stove out on your balcony or patio? Do you have a barbeque? You'll want to make sure you have an alternate way to cook or reheat your food.

What about water? Let's say you need a gallon a day for drinking. Add a bit more for washing, even just what we call a bird bath. (Wet washcloth, scrub any potentially stinky areas). Do you have pets? Add some water for them too. I still find it outrageous that a lot of folks pay hard earned money for something that falls from the sky. Rarely will you ever see me buying bottled water. Save your milk jugs, pop bottles, juice jugs or whathaveyou. The bigger, the better. Rinse them out well, remove the labels if you can and put a capful of regular home-use bleach into the jug/bottle. Not the lemony kind of bleach, mind you, just regular, run of the mill bleach. Fill the container with warm water, the warmer the better, and give it all a swirl. Put the cap back on, turn the vessel upside down to make sure the upper parts are disinfected too. Dump that out, maybe your toilet can use the added clean, and rinse the vessel very well with repeated fillings and rinses of water. If you don't mind your tap water, you can fill your jug or bottle with that. We use a water jug with a built in filter here (which reminds me, I need to get a replacement filter for it), and I fill our jugs and bottles from the filtered water. I date the bottles with permanent marker and set it side somewhere out of the way. I doubt I have enough to last a month, but I know we'd all have enough water to last a week anyway.

So now, in theory, you've thought about food, water and a way to heat that food. You might want to invest in some candles for light too. There are a gazillion choices out there, from the scented variety to the basic emergency style. No matter which you get, always think about candle safety. Make sure those candles aren't tippable. If flashlights are more your style, there are plenty of sturdy LED flashlights and lanterns out there. Next time you're shopping or mall crawling, wander through a store that has sports equipment or camping equipment. Keep a thought for quality and safety, always. There are so many choices out there, you don't have to compromise safety or cost for quality.

I hope all this has gotten you thinking about how to beat your next power outage, wash out, flood or whatever might put a crimp in your daily life. It never hurts to be ready for anything that might come our way.

If You're Going To Be Poor In The Future, And You Are...

"If you’re going to be poor in the future, and you are, you might as well learn how to do it competently. It’s entirely possible to lead a life that’s poor in terms of money, material goods, and energy consumption, and profoundly rich—far richer than most contemporary lifestyles—in human values. If you’re going to do that, though, you’re going to have to learn how it’s done, and the only school where you can study that is that ancient institution, the school of hard knocks. If you start cutting your energy use and your material wants now, before you’re forced to do so, you can get past the hard part of the learning curve while you still have other options."
from "Waking Up, Walking Away", The ArchDruid Report,John Michael Greer


I read The ArchDruid Report twice this morning. Once because I find I sometimes miss the point he's trying to make (perhaps because I find it difficult to read narrow columns?), and then again, because I wanted to make sure I was grasping his point. Lots of folks are catching on to voluntary simplicity, for a lot of reasons. Many others are having it forced upon them. Here, I'm in a different category, the one that borrows a bit from each of the others. I live so far below the poverty line, I need a map and far-off vision to find it, despite the fact that I have held a full time job for years. Our kids don't have the latest game system, or the coolest cellphone. We don't have iPads or iPones. I admit though that at one time, all of us but one had an iPod, albeit not the newest model. But we eat well, and we exercise, and we're generally in better health than most of our neighborhood. One of my pastimes lately has been de-cluttering. Before my friends and family run for the thermometer, no, I'm not sick. It occurred to me one day that we've lived in this apartment for 11 years now (and a bit), and we've accumulated a fair bit of stuff. So I decided to start going through clothes, books, magazines, toys...you get the idea. I've caught myself many times wanting the latest whatever. Our middle child borrowed an iPad from school to do music homework, and of course it made the rounds here as we all poked and oooed and ahhhed over it. Yeah, I'd love to have one. But will we get one? Likely not. We don't need it, and we can't afford it. It's more than a toy, we could use it as a tool. But it's not something we can't do without, so we'll admire it from afar. 


We've cut our energy consumption too. We don't have a car, everywhere we go is either by bus or a ride from a friend. Usually this arrangement works well for us, until we have to get to the pediatrician, who is in another town, or our favorite yarn supplier, also in another town. But generally, we live close enough to places we need that we can either walk there or take the bus. All this walking has put us all in better shape than most. The middle son complains every now and then about everyone else being able to take the bus while he walks, but on extremely wet days, we make sure he has bus fare. But I would bet my last dollar on him against his classmates if we were to see who could walk the farthest, him or them. Our small apartment is being heated by a small cube type heater. No big roaring furnace. It has a sensor that lets it know when it's reached the temperature I want, its' case is always cool to the touch and I feel pretty safe with it. So far, we've only had one cool morning in here. Of course it helps that this has been a mild winter.


So, as the ArchDruid says,"If you’re going to be poor in the future, and you are, you might as well learn how to do it competently..If you start cutting your energy use and your material wants now, before you’re forced to do so, you can get past the hard part of the learning curve while you still have other options."
Is that part of your plan? Do you plan on reducing while you can, or have you already tightened your belt too far? How do you make do, save money and cut back?