Back To Basics

[Ayatollahgondola]

Forgot to update you on the Jimmy Durante Orange:



also, have already burned through a whole cord of our best oak firewood. We've been burning pretty much non-stop through november, december, and january. I got another half cord of wood that was cut up, but needed to be split. It's oak too, with a little more walnut. Picked that up under the "free" section of craigslist. The Walnut that I got in June is burning ok; at least the limb wood is anyway. But the tree trunk which was around 80 years old was as hard as rock in the center, and still tightly holding moisture. It coals up pretty well, but it burns a little smoky. The Gum tree I cut in late august is not at all burnable yet. Next year for that one, or maybe for campfire wood this summer
Wood....it smells like independence when burned.

[Patriotic Army Mom]

Wow, it all looks good!

[Illini Sky]

After reading what all you've been doing these past several months, I'm worn out!!!

Love the Jimmy Durante orange!

[ilbegone]

Nice job stacking the wood, AG.

Got an idea, will PM you.

[Ayatollahgondola]

Garden update:

we've already eaten all the Radishes, and have made at least two large salads from the lettuce, The carrots are slow, but coming up, and lo and behold, we have Broccoli crowns a' formin'. Broccoli and carrots should be on the table in two weeks or so. Also, Garlic is about 5 inches high.






we've also made quite a dent in our firewood. we've burned about a cord and a half, and it's really starting to show in our diminishing stacks. Actually, some stacks are gone completely. We haven't really stopped burning for weeks. The fire goes out, but there are always glowing coals beneath the ash that allow for it to start back up in the evening by just stacking some small chips on the top and let it sit there for 20 minutes or so. at night, I close the air intake down quite a bit, and throw on a couple big logs, and the house is always warm in the morning.

[wetibbe]

Back in October 2011, 2 days before Halloween we had a huge snow storm. The leaves were still on the trees. There was massive damage. My property has 80 trees. I chain sawed limbs and branches for three days, saved the big ones and drug the rest to curb side for Town pickup. My power was off for three days.

I have a fireplace. I researched wood pellets. There are wood pellet furnaces and there are fireplace baskets. The furnaces are a major installation and an expense well North of $3,000.

I ordered the pellet basket. http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...=pellet+basket

It fit's into my fireplace grill. And I bought bags of pellets from Lowe's, less than $4 per bag.

Hard wood, oak, firewood gets a little expensive from the Guy's who cut, split, haul and sell it.

[Ayatollahgondola]

So here's a few recent pics of our spring crops:


We've eaten about 4 rows of lettuce already. There was lots of that. Also almost gone is the broccoli. But we just planted squash, tomatoes, more radishes, corn, carrots, and a few herbs.