We had taken down some of the smaller limbs earlier but still had the much bigger ones that had been on the roof of the barn. So they needed to come down anyways. Lee’s brother Greg gave us a 24 foot ladder so that helped us get what we couldn’t reach before with our smaller ladder.

After much begging on my part to let me have my turn Lee finally let me up. Well mostly because I think his arm was falling off from all the sawing. Jessica came out to see us earlier. So when my arm started falling off she got her turn on limb sawing. I wonder if she is going to stop coming over as she always gets to help in what ever we are doing.

The tree limbs were huge so we are going to use them for next years kindling. Gotta put some of the yard debris to good use eh?

The first cord of firewood we purchased arrived cut and split.  Unfortunately, a “cord” on craigslist is really about 3/4 of a cord if that.  A dry cord of softwood weights 2000 pounds, and hardwood weighs about 4000 pounds.  If your cord of madrone arrives in the bed of a half-ton pickup, send it back.  So … for our second batch, I bought a trailer load of cut pole pines.  The trailer’s volume would hold 2.5 cords, and the length of the wood ensured that it was neatly stacked.  A good deal, with only one small problem: we needed to cut and split it ourselves.

Cutting is a rather straight-forward enterprise requiring only a bow saw and lots of energy.  Bahco is a good brand of Swedish-made saws and blades.  I picked up a 21″ bow saw at Wilco, and some 30″ Bahco blades for a frame saw I intend to build.  However, given the size of the above woodpile, a chainsaw is sadly a much more efficient means of cutting.  I don’t much like chainsaws.  They are noisy, dirty, and extremely dangerous.  They are the ultimate anti-green tool. Also, the average chainsaw injury requires 110 stitches. In their defense, they turn a tree into a pile of logs much faster that any hand tool.

I’d like to issue a big thanks to our neighbor Drew for stopping by with his Husqvarna a couple days after our woodpile was delivered and helping cut some of it.  Robin’s dad, Steve, stopped by subsequently with his chainsaw, and cut more.  I then used Steve’s saw to cut more.  And then the first pile was complete.  The picture above shows the slightly smaller second pile I have yet to cut up.  (The pines, by the way, were runaway Christmas trees, so no old growth trees were hurt in the making of this woodpile.)

Big logs cut up fine on the ground.  You saw most of the way through for all the cuts, then roll the log 180 degrees and finish the cuts. Small logs cut more safely in a sawbuck.  There’s lots of plans available online for these.  I looked through a few, and then built this one using all scrap lumber:

It folds flat for storage, and is set up for cutting 16″ logs on the marked lines.  The pivot bolts are recessed out of the way of stray chainsaw blades.  For small logs (5″ or so), I lift them into the sawbuck, and then cut them by walking from end to end and sheering off 16″ pieces.  When it gets down to the width of the sawbuck, I cut on the lines marked.  Also very handy for hand-cutting with a bow saw.

When the sawing is done, you end up with a pile of logs, many of which will require splitting.  Some people opt for a powered log splitter, but I find it impossible to justify the cost and environmental impact unless you have a firewood business.  Otherwise, your easiest solution is to buy a true splitting maul.  A splitting maul has a wider head than an ax, so it forces the log apart as it enters, but a flat end so you can treat it like a wedge and hit it with a hammer to motivate knotty pieces of wood.

My “buy from small businesses” rule led me astray here, as I don’t really much like the tool I ended up with and I’ve spent about $50 bucks on it counting a new handle (after breaking the first one in 20 minutes … oops) and the stupid rubber thing to save future handles (which causes it’s own set of problems).  My recommendation: if you are cheap, buy the basic 6 lb or 8 lb version at a hardware or farm store.  It looks exactly like a sledgehammer with one face ground into a blade.  It should run about $22.  If you want splitting bliss, buy the fancy 6lb model with flared sides and a double-curve fiberglass handle at Jerry’s.  It is $40.  If I could do it over, I’d get that one.  Oh, and be very careful not to over swing or you will very easily break the handle.  I speak from personal experience.

Anyway, find a maul, get a large log to use as a splitting base to save your back (I need a much wider one), find safety glasses, and swing …

Let me emphasize the safety glasses.  They are obnoxious, especially if you don’t have anti-fog ones, but splitting will often require striking your maul with a sledgehammer.  Last night I broke a small chip of metal off my sledge which shot across the back yard and hit the wood shed with considerable force.  You don’t want to end up a homesteader with an eye patch!

Anyway, a couple hours of splitting made a definite improvement to the state of our woodshed.  I read in a wood heating book that a person can split a cord in two hours.  I’ll need to be in better shape to do that … or perhaps have the deluxe splitting maul at Jerry’s … but it did go much faster than I expected.

The most exciting thing we have been doing on the stove cook wise is making popcorn. Yup, you read right. My mom gave us a popcorn maker as a surprise present. It’s all metal and you crank the handle which turns some things (Lee groaning here at my lack of explanation) and moves the kernels around. Then up pops the most wonderful popcorn you could wish for that tastes so much better than that bagged stuff. Not to mention that it has none of the chemicals or bad stuff in it. Then dash salt on it and pour melted butter…..oh its great I tell you. My mom got it from Territorial Seed Company for us if you are wanting one.

This of course is Edgar watching over me as the popcorn is getting made. He has an INTENSE weakness for popcorn and has to supervise the cooking of it always. ]]> http://farmfolly.com/2008/12/cooking-on-the-wood-stove-top/feed/ http://farmfolly.com/2008/12/mouse-poop-redux/ http://farmfolly.com/2008/12/mouse-poop-redux/#comments Sat, 27 Dec 2008 06:39:49 +0000 robin http://farmfolly.com/?p=664 Yes we did it again. After much putting off on Lee’s part we finally worked on tearing out most of the living room ceiling. We left a stretch on at the very front of the house as it helps keep the heat in. That part of the ceiling goes straight up to the roof so we aren’t taking it off until we have too.

Lee starts out the nasty job by wearing eye protection but forgetting his breather mask. That and MUCH grumbling. We moved most of what we could out of the way.

I help out by vacuuming the plywood ceiling before it was all way pulled down. That way it helped contain the mess and get less poop everywhere. It actually worked pretty well. There were no clouds billowing up. Still a lot of mouse poop and what not every where, but that couldn’t be helped.

Lee remembered to put on his breather mask. Jessica and I resorted to using our shirts. After Jessica left I went and got my mask though.

Lee was thrilled to see that the builders of the house cut into the ceiling floor joist to install the light fixture. I think that they wanted people to fall through the floor.

We also discovered that there was a house fire at one time. Lee had to take off a few paneling boards by the kitchen to get the ceiling plywood off. When he did that we saw this…

So we are thinking that there was a kitchen fire at one time. The paneling boards are not put back in order so some are chared an others are not. There are also some new two by fours and different nails used to put the paneling boards back up. It will be interesting to see how many more boards are burned like that in the kitchen wall.

And finally the air quality picture…..I so hate mouse poop….

After all the floors had been vacuumed up and then mopped, couch disenfected, showers taken, poop clothes taken down to my mom’s to be washed, and the kitchen wiped down, we are all ready to put off taking out the rest of the ceilings for a long while again.

• Tongue & groove covers at least one wall in the front bedroom
• Plywood is nailed over the tongue & groove
• Strange zigzag bracing fills that wall  … more badly done sheer support?

However, there’s lots wrong with that picture.  First, nobody should be cutting down old-growth timber for firewood.  There’s plenty of dead wood in most areas, and fast-growing timber on small managed woodlots can be indefinitely sustainable.  Also, cutting smaller trees or dead limbs minimizes the need to split wood, and (for the energetic) makes hand-cutting a possibility as well.  Third, fireplaces are decoration, not a heat source.  Modern air-tight woodstoves can be 80% efficient.  Combine this with a highly insulated home, and you’ve got the ultimate in renewable ‘green’ heating.

That’s our motivation for buying this woodstove.  Unfortunately, time constraints force us to buy wood from others, and bad insulation means we’ll be burning far too much the first year, but at least our Lopi Endeavor stove will ensure that it burns cleanly.  The Lopi produces only 4 grams of particulate pollution per hour, the cleanest for it size of all EPA-certafied wood stoves.  It does this by injecting fresh heated air directly into the firebox at the top.  This fresh air combines with “exhaust gases” and causes a secondary ignition.  The result is more heat output and a cleaner final exhaust.

The secondary burn is that line of fire across the top of the stove.  It looks like natural gas is being injected into the stove, but it’s actually just oxygen igniting the tars and wood alcohols in the smoke.  It only kicks in when the stove is appropriately hot (woodstoves burn most efficiently when they burn very hot).  Sometimes it can dance across beautifully, like the Aurora Borealis, or even totally obscure the viewing glass in a blazing inferno.  The result, is this:

Where there’s smoke, there’s a fireplace.  Where there’s no smoke … maybe a modern woodstove?

Not to leave Edgar out here, this was his first snow he had ever been in. Did he notice anything different? If he did he didn’t let on and had much fun zooming around in it. Business as usual for him.

Tonight’s accomplishment is two indoor outlets.  I haven’t done it sooner because I was concerned about it interfering with the first stage in county electrical inspections.  Ever since we moved in, there have been two extension cords dangling from our living room window and plugged into boxes below the service panel.  There have also been lots of emphatic “when you get electricity” phrases uttered by in-laws, and lots of tripping over cords running about the place.

However, with tonight’s temperatures hovering around 10 degrees and cold air streaming in through a window held open for ridiculous reasons, I reached my limit.  If the county inspector wants to complain, I will apologise for having the audacity to simultaneous want electricity during a home renovation project and live in a county where the building department is owned by special interest groups.

So, 40 minutes to Jerry’s for two plastic outlet boxes and two outlets, one hour with a hammer, drill, wire strippers, etc, and the luxury of indoor electricity is ours!  Admittedly, we still have extension cords, but the location allows me to route them almost entirely out of the way.  No more tripping!

And yes, the outlets are strictly temporary.  For one thing, new code regulations require tamper proof outlets.  Also, I’m not sure I meet wire strapping requirements with this installation.  Given there is less than 3 feet of wire in the longer run, I’m going to worry about something else though.  Like our dwindling firewood pile …