Posts filed under Homesteading

The Homestead Year, 2016 in Retrospect, Part One

Here is my homestead year in retrospect, or half of it.  Part two should follow any day.  A lot happened in 2016 I guess.  It was a pretty good year, much better than other recent years in many ways.

Simple Remote Biochar Production Experiment Part 1

I have a situation that is faced by many in my part of the world.   After many decades of wreckless logging, the whole area is pretty much a mess.  Overgrown forests with massive quantities of Dead, Diseased, Decrepit, Dying, Deformed, Decadent (I'm running out of D's, whats a D word for crowded? Dense maybe...) trees and brush.  Just the amount of already dead and down wood is sometimes enough to make a bunch of charcoal at any given site.  The forests are generally unhealthy and not very productive of food for wildlife.  The trees are crowded and instead of having a reasonable number of healthy trees we tend to have a lot of competing trees that are just hanging in there, with very healthy large productive trees of any kind being the exception.  The forest is seeking an equilibrium as always, but that is a process that takes time and we can intervene to speed up the process or steer the ecology in a certain direction such as managing for diversity, wildlife, timber, or all three at once.

 

Given the general success of biochar growing experiments and the remarkable prehistoric and historic examples of charcoal amended soils, it just makes sense to pursue conversion of a portion of that biomass into charcoal.  While sophisticated methods utilizing the energy released in charring will no doubt be developed (and should as soon as possible), there is no good reason for citizens with woodlots not to engage in small scale production of charcoal and at this point I think it's pretty much nuts to burn brush piles into ash.  With the pit and trench methods, we have completely eliminated the need for chopping up or chipping wood 3 inches diameter and down.  That is a huge step and makes burning charcoal extremely accessible to anyone that can get away with having open fires.  But, I find myself faced with a problem that many others will also have.  That is extinguishing the charcoal once it is formed.  Most of my brush is in areas with no water.  This simple idea might take care of that problem and make burning charcoal in remote areas very easy.

Anywhere I walk in the woods here there is clearing to be done.  I think most areas that are unmanaged I could probably dig a trench and produce at least a couple hundred gallons of charcoal without having to drag the wood very far.  Otherwise, I have to clear a way to drive in so I can either drive the brush out or bring water in (sometimes feasible and sometimes not).  While my idea is very simple, solving that problem opens up huge possibilities for me and anyone else in a similar situation.  

My friend Erica and her daughter Jessica live on 200 acres with the same problems.  Like me, Erica does forestry practice, just because it is the right thing to do and needs doing.  The result is huge amounts of biomass that could be converted to charcoal.  When they have a window of good weather to come over, we're going to test out this idea and possibly be looking toward further experiments to assess the feasibility of char production as a cottage industry for land holders in this situation.   I think there is great possibility there.  I'm always interested in ways that people here can make a living doing something useful using the local resources of which none is more abundant than excessive biomass.  That is more relevant than ever since the economy has been artificially buoyed by black market marijuana production for some time, and that won't last much longer as more people in more states are going into Marijuana production which is causing prices to plummet.  Good riddance I say, but don't get me started on that!  Eventually, we will no doubt return to the kind of hardscrabble existence that characterized the area previously.  Personally, I see that as mostly a good thing as it forces people to be creative and do a diversity of things to get by.  I have lived in areas like that before and there are negatives for sure, but I generally like the "necessity is the mother of invention" kind of effect which makes for interesting and less entitled people.  It certainly weeds out the weak.  I think that most people have become too lazy to pick up a shovel, walk off into the woods, produce some charcoal, haul it out, set up some processing apparatus and then prepare, bag and sell biochar; but I'm hoping that it may actually be feasible at this particular point in time to do so, and actually make enough doing it to make is profitable enough to pursue for people that like that kind of work.  Personally, there is hardly anything I like more than being out in the woods with some hand tools and cutting, trimming and burning stuff.  Most people would benefit from that kind of exercise and meaningful, direct work.  That's my idea of a good time!

Saffron, Growing the Most Expensive Spice at Home

Todays video is on saffron.  Saffron is expensive!  a quick look on Amazon shows the lowest price around $5.25 a gram, which is approaching $2400.00 a pound.  Um, yeah, right?  Fortunately it packs quite a punch flavor wise and not only does a thread of saffron contain a lot of flavor, but it is essential that you don't use too much of it or it's rather odd and dusty flavor can unbalance a dish.  So we can be thankful for that serendipity.  Anyway, $2400.00 a pound and up, what's up with that?  I'll tell you what's up with that from personal experience.  Saffron is expensive for two reasons.  Not a lot is produced per acre and more importantly, there are no saffron processing machines.  Each flower produces only three threads of saffron, which are the red female flower parts that receive pollen (or at least they used to, now the plant is sterile).  Every flower has to be plucked out of the ground, which is slower than you might think because they are buried in a brush of tough leaves,  Then someone has to pick that flower up and nimbly extract the three delicate red threads without pulling out too much of it's lower white part which has no flavor, and without any other unwanted stuff like bits of petal or the male pollen bearing parts.  If the worker is to neither starve nor be fired post haste, this must be done rapidly and preferably by plucking all three threads at once, not breaking them off short or pulling off one or two at a time.

Every year thousands of mostly young and lazy people flood the region I call home to engage in the harvest of cannabis.  One of the more time consuming jobs employing thousands is trimming the buds to remove the larger leafy parts. Of course there are no statistics for a black market industry, but thousands flock here for this relatively high paying job.  It is tedious work, just like saffron plucking, but the pay is vastly better.  If saffron were illegal, people would flock to saffron growing regions to pluck saffron and leave with enough to live on for 6 months or more.  Alas, saffron production is an entirely legitimate business and if you go to follow the saffron harvest, I think you'd better save up for a while first and bring extra money with you for your saffron processing vacation!  I had some illusions of possibly growing the stuff for side income.  Well, let me tell you, those notions came to a screeching halt when I weighed an hours yield of saffron plucking not even including growing and harvest.  I'm going to try again someday when I'm better at it, but at this point is looks like it's the kind of work that the first world always shuffles off onto some place where people have fewer choices for employment.  I can tell you, if you pay 2400.00 a pound for saffron, someone is getting royally screwed in that transaction and it ain't you!  You're certainly getting a bargain.

But hey, money isn't everything and I'm about the biggest fan around of divorcing ourselves from the everything-has-a-price-tag, time-is-money, market value mindset.  I've spent a lifetime unlearning that way of thinking in order to pursue the kind of knowledge that I'm after.  If I stopped to value the stuff I do all the time, I would do very little of it.  That means I am poorly adapted to the modern paradigm and really have low survivability in the current default society, but that's okay with me.  There are things more important than money or survival.  Look buddy, when the local economy collapses because of the legalization of marijuana I'll at least have saffron aplenty for my mixed rodents with gourmet mushrooms and acorn sauce as I slowly starve to death up here in the hills defending the last of my carrot crop from wandering bands of starving out of work pot growers.  Nope, the saffron industry will never replace the pot industry in the emerald triangle but, thanks to it's inherent potency, growing enough saffron for your own yearly supply is very easy and not even that time consuming!  I enjoy plucking those precious little red threads out, at least to a point, and processing the flowers from a bed 4x6 even at the peak of the season is basically the amount of time it takes to watch a tv show or part of a movie.  I would present for your consideration the idea that kind of busy work is good for the soul.

Saffron is easy to grow here.  I just plant the bulbs and maybe weed them and that's it.  I did get two different batches of bulbs and so far one batch is far out performing the other, so that is something to think about.  There are different strains, no doubt due to epigenetics or to random mutations over time since the plants do not produce seed but are grown solely by dividing the underground parts and planting them.  While the bulbs are rather pricey, it might be worthwhile to pay extra for a proven producing strain if you can find a seller you have that kind of confidence in, like a producer that sells bulbs on the side to subsidize saffron thread production.

The worst problem I've had is that rodents seem to love them.  I had to plant them in a wire lined bed to keep gophers out, which has worked well for a few years now.  I've also made a lot of naturalized plantings, but they have done poorly so far.  I had hoped I could just scatter the bulbs all over the hills and wander around plucking them with the theme song to The Sound of Music playing through my head, but it is looking like they are not well enough adapted to this climate or soil.  I haven't given up yet, but it's not looking good.  I'm not sure where all you can get away with growing the stuff, but you can look into that on your own.  It seems to grow well in my mild Mediterranean climate.

The flowers bloom in the fall and are harvested daily or up to every other day as they emerge and processed immediately.  Dry the threads quickly, but out of the sun and store in a dark jar.  It is an oddly flavored but delicious spice and I'm finding more and more uses for it.  Yesterday morning I made browned chanterelle mushrooms in a butter and caramelized maple syrup sauce with saffron, vanilla and candy cap mushrooms.  Was it good?  Do you have to ask?  Omg, it was so good.

Well, that's it.  Watch my short and very pretty video, because it's cool and I worked hard on it.  And share it with someone you love so I can get more views and buy axes!  I don't actually really want any more axes, (though I probably want different axes).  I just want to test them all.  I'm only interested in having a pile of axes to the extent that it serves the purpose of learning me all about them.  Once I determine an axe or other tool is dead weight, just like an apple variety or saffron strain that doesn't perform, It's getting the axe so to speak.  Skills and knowledge over gear.  I have too many possessions already due to my not-so-simple living.  I also don't need more saffron than I can process, or tons of saffron that I have to care for, but can only process for 3.00 an hour.  Okay, maybe with the right marketing, selling local organic saffron to fancy by area restaurants maybe I could hit the point where saffron production is at least equivalent to very low paying job like working at walmart.  Or, maybe I'm wrong and I'll get super fast and crack the saffron code to make it a potentially viable business.  I think saffron will remain a labor of love though.   Anyway, I was saying that I don't need tons of saffron plants, so I can sell the extra corms to other would be saffron growers, which is honestly probably much more lucrative than saffron production.  Once I dispose of the poor producing strain and expand the good producing strain, I'll probably have bulbs for sale in my little SkillCult e-store or on ebay.  Until then, I think you'll see saffron cropping up in a recipe here and there.

Note that there is no advertising on this site, nor am I constantly pushing you to buy products, but only occasionally link products that I can pretty much get behind with little or no qualification.  That is no accident.  I feel that having advertising everywhere is contrary to my goal of convincing people to learn and do more for themselves and consume less.  The medium is the message as they say.  However, when you do need to buy stuff, you can help me succeed at my endeavors by bookmarking this link ( http://amzn.to/1Ne861e )in your browser bar and using it whenever you shop on Amazon.com.  It costs you nothing, but it has the potential to help me a lot if enough people do it.  If you don't know how it works yet, that link contains an ID that credits me a small commission around 4% to 6% on anything you buy through it.  That's why most sites are covered in links and ads pushing you toward Amazon or other affiliate programs.  I really don't want to do that, and I don't think you want me to either.  And a huge thanks to those of you who already use that link, it does make a difference!

How to Clean Out a Horizonatally Drilled Spring or Well

This under 4 minute video is about cleaning my horizontally drilled spring.  The spring was drilled into the hillside at least 30 feet at a slight upward angle long before I moved here.  The first ten feet of pipe are solid and the rest is perforated to allow water to seep in.  When I moved here, it only ran about 1/2 gallon per minute all year, but the owner said he thought it used to run more in the winter time.  I called the local driller and he told me how to clean it.  Once cleaned, the spring gushed 10 gallons a minute for hours as it let off the built up pressure, which it does now every time I clean it.  They often will slow down over a long period of time.  One of our neighbors actually drilled a new well because they thought their horizontally drilled spring was just drying up and didn't know that it could be cleaned out.  Mine needs to be cleaned about once every year or two.  This time it was nearly clogged to the point of going dry while the previous two years it didn't need cleaning at all, maybe because of the drought?  With all the rain we're getting this year, the drought, worst in most people's memory, is over.  Yay for water!  If this spring wasn't here, I probably wouldn't be either.

The first time I cleaned the spring.  I was surprised and pretty happy!

Posted on March 10, 2016 and filed under Homestead Lifestyle, Homesteading, water.

Homestead Life Episode 2: A day on the Homestead

Just a day on the homestead running around doing stuff.  It is basically spring here already this year and I had a lot going on, so I thought I'd try this experiment out.  The pace is less frantic than some of my other videos, on purpose.  It's still cut fairly tight with some good bits of information here and there, though that isn't really isn't why I made it.

After receiving some comments referencing reality shows, I'm kind of thinking in that direction a little bit.  I'm the type of person they contact for reality or re-enactment type shows and some of my friends have been on them or contacted about it like George Michaud, Cody Lundin and Tom Oar.  My ex and I were approached about being on Wifeswap a couple of times, ha!  I'm not likely to be interested as those are often very skewed and the subject may have little control over how it's all done once the footage is shot and it hits the editing room.  When we shot a brain tanning segment for Modern Marvels (season 13 episode 9) their whole attitude was basically "is it good TV?" accuracy was not really much of a consideration.  A lot can be done in editing and even an awesome and authentic person, like Cody Lundin on Dual Survival, can be diluted by the fake drama and manipulation of directors, producers and editors.  My other homie Wylie Woods has been trying to get something together for a while with various producers and keeps getting jerked around and cancelled and told he can do it how he wants, but then maybe not so much.  Screw that.  I have potential access to millions of people who are hungry for something authentic and I can do it any way I want.  Someone commented that I could have my own reality TV show.  Well I do, and here it is!  I'm sure I'll get better at it, but I think the production and even some of the content is secondary to authenticity in this type of thing.  So, basically I'll interject some lifestyle/day in the life stuff sprinkled in with the down to the nitty gritty how to stuff and projects and all with occasional thought viruses, the transmission of which is why I'm here as much as anything... to influence the way people think about and perceive the world and what is possible.

Splitting Wood by Hand, #5, Just Splitting Some Wood.

This is #5 in my wood splitting video series, but it's being released out of order.  After shooting the footage for segments3 and 4 on technique and strategy, and trying to explain it all, the gears in my brain really started turning.  I feel like I can do a much better job of explaining and demonstrating those things now.  Having put it all into language in my head I also feel like I have a better personal understanding too and can probably further refine my technique.  So the technique and strategy videos will be re-shot this year, although I'm putting a few bullet points and a teaser below.  Also below are a list of other wood splitting videos worth watching.

I also have better slow motion capabilities now, which I can use to make a study of the mechanics of splitting.  Some of the important stuff that I'll be talking about in the technique video is presented in this segment as subtitles.  I'll make blog posts with photos explaining segments 3 and 4, but this video stands on it's own more or less, and it is intended for visual learning anyway.

I just spent a couple of hours looking for a few decent wood splitting videos to link in this one, and I can tell you, my stuff is top shelf compared to the vast majority of what's out there.  Hopefully people will actually see it.  I'm still ranking low in the search engines.  Comments, likes and shares anywhere help me reach more people.  I'm very excited to make the next two videos and get deeper into the details that matter and which could really help people increase their splitting effectiveness!  The previously released videos, along with this one, are in my firewood playlist.

 

Some notes and bullet points.

You'll notice that I don't favor using a splitting block for the most part.  Splitting on the ground requires a tool with a pretty obtuse edge for strength, but it has some benefits as follows.

*We don't have to move the wood to the block, especially important with big rounds.

*We don't have to pick up pieces and set them on (or back on) the stump.

*We don't have to set the tool down to pick up wood

*We have better mechanical advantage (more speed can be generated if target is lower)

*It is safer, since the work is closer to the ground.

*Less interruption to the work flow.

I've come to think that the equation Mass+Speed= Inertia/Momentum/Power is a core principal here.  I believe that any energy transfer to the target after contact is negligable compared the energy embodied before impact.  By having a low target and tightening the radius of the swing into a shorter arc at the end of the stroke, you can generate a tremendous amount of speed which equates to stored energy.  I know there is more involved than just that, but I suspect that things like the shape of the head, angle of attack and any twisting or manipulation of the head is really secondary to that equation.  Even if twisting, the head, at the moment of impact to open the split, you are still using mostly that stored energy, you're just sending it off in a different direction.  Aim and Strategy are of course also extremely important.  But, assuming you know where to strike and can hit the target, being able to embody a great deal of energy in the maul or ax head will most certainly serve you well, even if you don't need it all the time.

These video stills helped me understand my technique better and will no doubt lead to further refinement.  They are evenly spaced and shot at 24 frames per second, so covering just 9/24ths of a second.  Notice how much faster the maul head travels from frames 4 to 6, due to a tightening of the radius of the swing. It is hardly visible in frame 6, too fast for the camera to catch. 

After frame 5, the arc revolves around my fixed wrist position.  Between frames 5 and 9, my wrists move very little, but the head moves 4 feet or more.  I'm not pushing the head through the wood, I'm whipping it on the end of this long handle to throw it through the wood.  The force generated by this technique can be very powerful.  It's about taking the mass you have to work with and accelerating it very fast using simple leverage.

Also, note that because of that tighter radius, the angle of attack is significantly toward me.  If the round were up on a block, that could put the mauls edge pointing dangerously at my ankles or feet... not to mention that I would have less time and distance in which to generate speed unless I'm 7 feet tall.  A low block is an option, but requires moving each round onto the block.  Of course, this much momentum is often unnecessary.  Splitting blocks are great sometimes, but I've come to use them less and less for the type of splitting I'm usually doing around here.

Other youtube videos worth watching

Wood splitting videos worth checking out.  I had to sift through a load of crap to find these few gems!

*Damn, can anyone say badass?  I like the splitting horizontal pieces on the ground.  Been playing with that for smaller pieces.  https://youtu.be/ZMTnhDr8Wa4  

*And another bad ass!  A serious professional. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17HnpyMPFJA

*Score one for the badass ladies.  115 pounds of hellcat!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kTIS15oa7o

*Delicate and graceful, but effective.  And splitting over rocks even.  Just beautiful.  this is one of the Vido Daughters.  I have communicated with them about scythes and other self reliance/tool stuff.  Lovely people, check out their youtube channel, scytheconnection for some amazing videos, and also the scythe connection website. These people are the real deal!  When they talk, people should listen.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fWo0P0MdJM

*This guy split professionally with a relatively light and very thin axe he designed just for splitting.  Entirely different than my generally heavy handed maul approach.  Here he races a hydraulic splitter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Z2UXEFUIw

*Eustace Conway, subject of the book The Last American Man.  I met him when I was 19.  He blanked out a piece of wood for me with his hatchet.  I was trying to make a bowl out of it, but I only had a dull swiss army knife.  It was the first time I saw anyone use a hatchet with any proficiency, a Eureka moment for sure.  I've been in love with axes and hatchets ever since.  Anyway, his technique is interesting.  Poetry in motion!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHk6jn4c_FE

*I like this guy's video.  His wood is easy splitting and sounds/looks frozen, which makes it even easier, but he's using a small short handled axe and he clearly knows what he's doing.  He's got the speed building rotation around the wrists thing going on too.  Also, very interested in his hit overhanging the far edge of the round technique.  I'll definitely be playing with that.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H10hVHCb-Ts

*This guy is great.  he's got a big old axe and is just totally berserk, but very effective and deadly accurate!  I'd love to see what he could do with that axe on some of the harder wood I split around here.  It's nice to use an axe when it does the job it just sort of slides on through, unlike the fat maul bits I use most of the time, but when axes jam up, the narrow bit sinks in deep and is a lot harder to pull out.   https://youtu.be/P32JDvu0b-0   Watch beginning of part 2 as well.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyWvBi-4QhIAgain with the very straight, grained soft, easy splitting wood though.

The No Paper Rule, Why I Never Start Fires With Paper

It’s fire season again (the one where you get to have fires, not the other one) and I wanted to share something about the fire culture here at Turkeysong homestead.  There has been a no paper rule in place in my households for a very long time.  That is, there is no paper used to start the fire, just natural stuff.  I am very pleased with this institution and hope to never change it.  I’ll tell you why, and why I think it’s a good approach for people who are interested in self reliance, or in fire in general.

 

I can’t remember when I completely stopped using paper, but I know that I stopped putting any paper into the fire at all when I began to process olives a lot.  I wanted to use the ashes from the woodstove for curing olives and I didn’t want any paper ashes in there.  Paper is an industrial product, so who knows what all is in there and what is and isn’t destroyed in burning, especially if there are any inks involved, which there usually are.  Plus, burning paper smells nasty.  That is one smell that I really hate, like when someone stuffs a bunch of paper in their woodstove or throws smouldering paper plates and napkins into a campfire.  Ashes for processing olives must be very clean.  The oils in the olive, like all oils I believe, are good at picking up smells/tastes.  Well, it turns out that ashes from woodstoves in general are not very good for processing olives, because they tend to smoulder and create a lot of smokey and creosotey by-products.  But the no-paper-in-the-woodstove-ever rule stuck anyway and I like it.

 

Before that I very rarely, if ever, started fires with paper anyway, and that has more to do with my real point here.  I may want to use my ashes for processing food, and eventually most of them end up in the garden, where they are an outstanding fertilizer, but the other major factor is that it’s just too easy to start a fire with paper.  I have started a lot of fires in my life.  I’ve spent a lot of time cooking over fires, both open fires and over stoves.  If you cook over open fires, unless you manage them carefully to retain a coal bed, which not infrequently can require the use of extra wood, you might have to start several a day.   I’ve also heated with wood most of my life.  Then there is the lighting of campfires and burn piles and whatever else.  There is a reason people start fires with crumpled newspaper-  It’s easy.  I remember my friend showing me his system for starting fires in the wood stove which started with a large pile of newspapers torn into strips.  I was not impressed, though it was certainly fast and effective.  Lighting fires with what is available (naturally) is an art.  And like anything, it atrophies with disuse.  Wait, back up there.  It also has to be learned in the first place.

 

Our first "intern" Kendra was very domesticated, but very ready to soak up whatever there was on offer here.  Walking through the night a hundred yards to the cottage was terrifying for her, even with a flashlight, but she white knuckled it and got a lot more used to it by the end of a couple weeks.  She also had to learn how to start the fire without paper.  I can tell you from experience, put the average person in front of a woodstove or fire pit with some wood, even good dry wood, and they will struggle with starting a fire.  Better have a lighter or a whole box of matches, although, you may not when they are done!  Sure, if you give them a pile of dry straw and fine twigs that are tinder dry, it might be easy enough.  But that is not how it goes generally.  We’ll get back to Kendra, but first…

Brave and beautiful Kendra in a bed of apples

 

I recall one of my first excursions into the woods that wasn’t like an organized backpacking type approach to camping.  My friend and I went out into some park and picked a terrible low, cold, damp camping spot in some redwoods.  I determined to get a fire started so we could cook and stay warm and all of that.  I had brought a magnesium fire starter with a zirconium striker.  I got plenty of white hot focal points of heat from that thing, but no fire.  Everything was damp to wet.  I had no idea how to find anything drier, how small to make stuff, what to collect species wise, that I should get wood that wasn’t on the ground, or take the wet bark off, let alone how to organize the stuff to get it to burn and spread the fire.  Fortunately, I also had a book of paper matches and a candle.  I used the entire candle, and all the matches to barely get a fire going by dripping the candle constantly over all this wet steaming redwood with the soggy bark still on it.  Can you say green?  I was so green.  OMG!  I knew I was lame though and had something to learn, that was obvious enough.  About 20 minutes later with the fire actually gaining a little momentum, the whole redwood grove lit up in a brilliant white light.  I had left my magnesium fire starter on the edge of the fire!  Ooops. It was a good light show anyway and now the fire was really going!  For you survivalist types that think your magnesium fire starter is an indestructable, weatherproof option, there is a mistake that is easy enough to make!

 

It shouldn’t take a book of matches, a candle and a magnesium fire starter to start a fire!  Or paper for that matter.  Amazing thin, crumpled, fast burning paper.  Even if it’s a little damp, it dries out as it burns.  The stuff is amazing, like someone made newspapers for starting fires.  When you stop using paper to light fires though, you find out that there is much more to building a fire with wood that is bulkier with a much lower surface area.  Take a given volume of wood, say a cube the size of a gaming die (as in singular of dice).  Put a match to that and it’s probably not even going to catch flame.  reconfigure that wood into a 1/4 inch diameter long stick and it has much more surface area and a less bulky cross section.  It may likely catch fire, now but it might no continue to burn well on it’s own.  Grind that up and make it into a thin sheet of paper and the low bulk of the material plus all that surface are makes for very easy combustion, especially when crumpled up!  There are things in nature similar to paper in their combustion properties, shredding barks and straw for instance, but they are not always common or available, or what happens to be dry at a given time.

 

This scenario has been repeated many times here:  Plop an intern/visitor down in front of the woodstove and say light a fire.  “Where’s the paper”.  “We don’t use paper… blah blah rationale for not using paper, blah blah, etc…”  Give them 10 or 15 minutes and the result is a frustrated person.  So, you give some pointers, basically lay out a system that can be roughly followed and let them go at it, maybe give some pointers here and there.  It always takes a while, but it’s always a revelation.  

 

With a stove full of crumpled newspaper you just don’t have to know that much about fire and how it works and spreads.  Not nothing for sure, you can still easily fail to get a fire kindled, but there is much less need for understanding how fire works.  Starting from scratch is a whole other deal.  Suddenly you have to think a lot more about size, shape, condition and architecture- how fire spreads and all these things that matter incredibly much when you don’t have something ridiculously combustible on hand to give a quick heat base.  Suddenly, you are intensely involved with nurturing a new life along.  It is compelling, intense and maybe in a word, engaging.

 

Just yesterday someone staying here was trying to start a fire in the cottage.  The wood was all damp (not by any fault of mine BTW).  And she was like, “can you start the fire?  I’m hurrying (and mumble, mumble something or other).”  I was like, sure, then I realized the truth probably was that this was just not a common scenario for her.  Tamara had pulled the no paper in the woodstove thing on her and it was not working out that great.  The wood was damp, it had to be split small or shaved and fed in a certain way at a certain rate.  Not a big deal for me.  I didn’t have to re-tool my methods much, or more importantly, my expectations of what it takes to light a fire.  That is just my life, not a new inconvenience to navigate and overcome.

 

By the time Kendra left, she said the most valuable thing she learned was simply how to start a fire without paper.  Not without matches by rubbing sticks together or anything super primitive and exciting like that, just how to take some wood and put a match to it and have it all work out eventually.  I was suprised at first, but that really stuck with me.   Watching so many people struggle with perfectly sound dry wood in an indoor environment and remembering some of my early experiences, I’m so glad to have the no paper rule in place.  It’s not just for other people either.  It’s for people that live here too… for me.  It keeps expectations low about what it means to start a fire.  It keeps us engaged with the fire, with the local materials, and with the process and phenomenon of fire.

 

One last thing.  This is a pretty strict rule.  Unless I’m in some huge hurry, I don’t start my fires indoors or out with paper.  It is occasionally tempting, but I just don’t do it.  I don’t dowse my burn piles in diesel either.  If I’m doing a lime burn, I set up the fire lay carefully before stacking the kiln and run around and spend the 15 minutes or whatever it takes to make a bundle of fine twigs and pitch wood to shove under it through the air hole to set it off.  Because if the rule isn’t strict it’s just too easy to fall off the wagon and never do it from scratch.  I’ve spent a lot of time with severe fatigue and malaise over the last 15 years or so.  I mean to the point where even basic tasks seem like big hurdles, and it’s hard to just take care of my basic needs through some days.  But, the no paper rule always holds, no matter what.  That makes it just something that I do, there is no easy option available.  If I want easy fires, I have to prepare or collect kindling ahead of time.  If I want it really easy, then I make some split pitch-wood sticks to have on hand (more on which later).  Two of those and it really is pretty damn easy to light up the woodstove or barbecue.  But it is my responsibility to make that happen.  It doesn’t just show up in the mail once a week as the local advert.

 

I highly recommend the no paper rule if you heat with wood, or just in general.  It will make you and those who enter your sphere more broadly adapted for all the reasons I’ve already elaborated above.  The wood you burn and the resources around you will mean a little more to you.  You’ll understand them better, and I daresay appreciate them more in some way.  It is yet another level of engagement with your environment, contributing to your general physical competence, independence and understanding.  It will also increase your survivability by extension, and I think that is generally the best way to increase it.

 

For more on fire, see the fire index page

New life

Hot Sauce, the Real Deal, Fermented, Delicious and Beautiful

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I recently wrote up a thing on the instructables site on how to make lacto-fermented hot sauce.  As of now, I’ve made the instructables home page as a featured post and have over 5000 views and 172 likes (edit, this morning this instructable also made the instructable daily email.  Likes and views are pouring in!  That's awesome.  I don't write this stuff for my mother to read ;).  It’s also entered into a contest.  I believe voting is open for another day here http://www.instructables.com/contest/preserveit/   I got my submission in kind of late, so there hasn’t been a lot of time to accumulate votes.

 

I’ve been looking forward to making this video because I get all fired up about fermented peppers and am prone to going on and slinging strong opinions about.  Many years ago, before fermentation was cool, I started trying to pickle some pepperoncini that I grew.  I love those wrinkly little things!  I looked up recipes for pickled peppers and they were all pickled in vinegar.  The results were basically inedible and certainly nothing like the pepperoncini you can buy in the store.  I was studying and experimenting with fermenting olives at the time and finally put two and two together, they had to be fermented of course!  I extrapolated off of a recipe for traditional fermented dill pickles and kaching!  Success!  I had figured out how to make pepperoncini that handily stomped the best brands you can buy (more on that and testing pepperoncini varieties some other time... and other pepper related stuff.  I basically can't grow enough of the things to supply all of my numerous pepper habits).  From there I started making pimentos and hot sauce and have done so ever since, gallons upon gallons of all of them.  I published my rather detailed and long article on fermenting peppers on the paleotechnics site 8 years ago, when there was very little on the web about fermenting much of anything.  It is worth reading if you want to know more and stuff like the rationale behind fermenting anaerobically in mason jars, though I think it could use some updating.  I haven't read it in a while. 

Cupboard stuffed full of lacto-fermented pepperoncini, pimentos, hot sauce peppers and olives.  None are heat canned.  They are live ferments sealed up with a protective layer of carbon dioxide from the fermentation process.  Damn, th…

Cupboard stuffed full of lacto-fermented pepperoncini, pimentos, hot sauce peppers and olives.  None are heat canned.  They are live ferments sealed up with a protective layer of carbon dioxide from the fermentation process.  Damn, this picture is making my mouth water.  I usually store my hot sauce peppers like this and just make up one jar at a time into sauce as needed.

 

This is the real way to make hot sauce.  Peppers ground up in vinegar will never be the real deal.  It is really easy too, no magic hoo-doo or lab coats required.  Read the instructable here, or you can just watch the video below, which is visually appealing and under 5 minutes long.  So here you go, full screen, HD recommended.



Wood Splitting Series, Part 2: Tools

This series will be almost solely about using splitting mauls, with a nod to axes and wedges.  Splitting with a hydraulic splitter v.s. hand tools is discussed in part one, the introduction.  If you are out in the wilderness with an axe, then you need to use that, but the maul is a much better tool for splitting a lot of woods.  An axe is designed to bite deeply and cut across the grain of wood, not to split it apart.  An axe made for chopping is acceptable in some cases, and even good in others, but not purpose made for heavy splitting.  There are splitting axes that are fatter, but they are kind of stuck between two jobs and I’m not sure what the advantages of a splitting axe are over a maul are.  I don’t think I’ve ever used one, so I wouldn’t really know.  They seem like a partial modification of an axe that hasn’t quite evolved all the way into a purpose built splitting tool.  For the wood I end up splitting a lot, I’m sure a splitting axe is more likely to get stuck.  That’s not to say they aren’t useful.  I’m sure it is just contextual.  See this link for a cool example of splitting wood using an axe by Eustace Conway, subject of the book The Last American Man.  This technique would not work very well on a lot of the wood I end up splitting.  Again with the context.

 

There are a lot of special maul designs out there, most of which I haven’t used.  One that I have used and am not a fan of, is the huge heavy triangle of steel, sometimes called a monster maul.  Yes, it may hit hard from all that weight, but you have to pick it back up and throw it around over and over and over again, while most of that time the extra weight is overkill.  Those monster mauls also have a steel pipe for a handle, which simply sucks.  They transfer more shock to your body.  A tool handle should flex so that it absorbs some of the shock of the blow instead of transferring it all into your body.  Lastly, they never stick.  You’d think that’s a good thing, because you never have to pull them back out, which requires energy.  But when a maul fails to stick and bounces off, I find it very jarring, no matter what type of maul it is, but more so if the handle is a steel pipe.  Your mileage may vary, but if I owned one of those I’m sure it wouldn’t see frequent use.  Maybe that type of maul could come in handy sometimes, but as an only splitting tool, it doesn't make much sense to me.


The Fiskars maul I have was given to me, and I’m not crazy about it, though you will read rave reviews all over the net.  The handle is too short on the small model I have,  which is a total deal killer.  I don’t like the balance or the feel of it all that well anyway.  It is weighted heavily forward so it points down easily, but that makes it awkward to swing around, making it a poor fit for my style of splitting.  It has no eye, so when the plastic handle eventually breaks it can’t be replaced, at which point it’s just a wedge.  It also has a thin bit which is more fragile.  I could see it working really well with a long handle and maybe on not super hard to split wood, but I wouldn't want to abuse that edge too much like I do on my regular maul.


The maul I’m using currently is medium in weight, so it’s not too hard to throw around, though it’s plenty heavy enough to do a lot of work.  The head is just one I grabbed out of my metal scrap pile, where there are several more, probably none of which I paid for.  I’m sure there are improvements that could be made and probably have been.  Out of all the tools I’ve tried, I have still always migrated back to a basic medium weight maul, and lets just say that I’m not highly motivated to look for something better.  This essential design has stood the test of time for a reason.  If I had a bunch of money, sure I’d like to get a slew of different splitting mauls and test them all and figure out what works the best.  Looking for a better design is not motivating though since my basic maul does the job quite adequately.

Standard American splitting maul.  No doubt it could be improved a little, and that even sounds like a fun project I'd like to undertake sometime, but it works well enough that I'm not motivated to throw money out to find a better design.  Aside from the handle, it was free.

 

I love wood handles and I have made a lot of my own.  Splitting mauls is one place that I’m in favor of fiberglass handles though.  Wood handles on a splitting maul are very vulnerable.  The main enemy of wooden handles is hitting them on the piece of wood you're splitting.  Eventually they become splintered and break.  They at least need a rubber bumper or some kind of guard, or to have rawhide shrunk on at the neck.  Another heavy stress on them is pulling them out of the wood when they stick.  With a fiberglass handle, I don’t even have to be careful, which makes splitting much more efficient.  The handles come with epoxy.  If the head ever comes loose, just use any epoxy to fix it.  There are lots of splitting maul heads floating around out there on which someone busted a wooden handle and never replaced it.  I have a pile of them.  If I lost the one I’m using now, I’d just go grab another one out of my stash and buy a fiberglass handle for it.  I do prefer the feel of a wooden handle and, if anything, my fiberglass handle is a little too flexible rather than the other way around.  The advantages of wood in feel, and even function, still don’t outweigh the remarkable durability of fiberglass though.  If I need or want to, I can always revert to wood, but my splitting efficiency would go way down.  I would have to be much, much more careful about how I use the tool, and spend more time knocking the maul out of the wood when it sticks rather than just yanking it out.

 

In my considerable opinion, a maul bit should not be too thin.  If it is too acute, like an axe, it will be more likely to stick in the wood and require some screwing around to pull it back out.  It will also be more fragile.  I like to split at ground level for convenience most of the time, so my maul edge is getting slammed into the dirt and gravel of the driveway over and over.  A relatively acute edge is not going to hold up to that kind of abuse and will dull more quickly.  It may even chip.  This is a compromise and I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what the best compromise is in terms of an angle.  I rarely measure the angle of any edge when I’m sharpening.  If you are sticking the maul deep into the wood frequently, and having to wriggle it out, think about using a maul with a more blunt shape.  It will stick sometimes, and almost any maul will stick in very spongy, soft, wet wood, but in most cases, when the maul sticks, it should not stick too deep and it should be relatively easy to unstick most of the time.  If it’s sticking deeply over and over, you are wasting a lot of energy pulling it back out and should think about a more obtuse tool.  To me, there is a compromise between a tool that always bounces off and one that almost always sticks.  A tool that bounces off occasionally and sticks occasionally, but does neither too often, or too extremely, is the compromise embodied in many of the standard splitting mauls I’ve used.

 

And lets talk about sharpness of the edge for a second.  The edge of of a maul doesn’t need a fine grind.  It just doesn’t make that much difference.  Yes, there is a point where it is too blunt and time to dress it back up, but it’s not a cutting tool.  It’s a splitting tool.  It has to be sharp enough to easily start the split, but after that the edge is not even touching the wood.  The wood is wedged apart by the sides of the maul once the split is started.

 

Wedges.  I don’t use wedges very often.  In fact, if I own any, I’m not sure where they are.  If I wedges to split a long log or something, I just make some out of whatever wood is handy.  Or, if I'm splitting something small, I use an axe or hatchet and pound on the back with a wooden mallet.  I find that with good technique and strategy, I can split most pieces of firewood without a wedge.  If a piece of wood is so hard to split that I have to bust out a wedge, I’m more likely to toss it in a pile to burn in a bonfire at a party, or sometimes I toss them in a gully for erosion control.  I just don’t get excited about using wedges either.  It’s not as fun as splitting wood with a maul.   Part of that is that I'm impatient.  Using a wedge is also loud enough that you should wear earplugs, just another thing to have on hand and have to deal with.  Still, wedges are really remarkably effective and are great to have around when you encounter something really tough.  They’re also going to be handy until your technique develops, or if you don’t have that much wood and have to split every piece.  They are also good for people who are just not strong enough or experienced enough to power through more difficult splits, especially in tall firewood rounds.  You can use an old axe head, but don’t use it if it’s a nice one.  The back will mushroom and the eye may eventually bend out of shape.  you’ll find axes like that all the time.  It’s almost uncommon to find one that is not beaten up at least a little on the poll (back).  most of them are still salvageable, but eventually they will be completely ruined if that kind of abuse is kept up.  So, if it’s a nice head, save it for someone to use as an axe someday.  Axes are actually cool again now, reflected by ebay prices.  The shape of an axe isn’t ideal for splitting firewood anyway.  Typically a fatter wedge will work better, again depending on the wood.

 

Wood splitting is dangerous, though not nearly as dangerous as using a sharp axe for chopping.  Be aware that as you beat on a metal wedge or old axe head with a metal sledge, or the back of your maul, it will begin to mushroom.  Eventually, these bits of metal will bust off and go flying.  Seriously, they can really zing off of there like a bullet.  You should grind them off occasionally, and of course you should wear safety goggles.  Personally, I choose not to wear eye protection when splitting wood, but when I’m pounding on a mushroomed axe or wedge head, I always wear goggles.  The mushroomed metal should be ground off every once in a while.  It is also quite possible to send chips of wood flying into your face when splitting with a maul, but not commonly enough to make me wear googles.  No doubt there is a risk though.  These are personal choices.  A maul may be dull, but it can be used to hurt yourself with its weight and momentum, so watch where that tool is going to swing if you miss or follow all the way through the split.

 

So to sum up, if you use a very heavy maul which is overkill for most of the wood that you split, you will be using a lot of extra energy unnecessarily by picking it up and throwing it around over and over again.  My experience splitting wood year after year has led me in the direction of a pretty standard medium weight maul as the sweet spot for general use, although that may be largely specific to my circumstances.  It is heavy enough to blast through some hard splits with good technique and repeated blows, but not so heavy as to be too burdensome most of the time.  Regardless of anything else, I can say from experience that the medium weight maul, used strategically and with skill is a good workhorse.  If you need to or want to use a gigantic heavy maul, reserve it for really heavy splitting.  If you do most, or all of your splitting with a medium weight maul, it will make you good at splitting wood, because you’ll have to be on your game when you split difficult pieces.  It is also blunt enough not to get stuck very often, but not so blunt as to bounce off and shock your arms, though both will happen occasionally, which just proves my point that it’s in the middle of those two extremes.

 

There is no reason to adopt my opinion as yours.  In fact there are plenty of reasons not to.  Be open to whatever comes along that works.  That’s what it’s about after all.  What works for me may not work for you.  I’m not conservative about this stuff at all.  I like trying new tools if just out of curiosity.  I think a 6 pound maul with a fiberglass handle is a good starting place, but it may even be overkill if you are splitting straight grained soft woods most of the time.  

 

Finally, there are always these videos of new splitting maul designs and various gimmicky wood splitting techniques and devices floating around on facebook and on forums.  I doubt any of them are a huge improvement over a good standard design.  Any advantage is good, but they won’t make up for a total lack of skill and understanding of strategy, or do the work for you.  In the next installment we’ll look at how to use the maul, and after that at the nature and composition of wood and strategies for tackling various situations.

 

I'd love to hear your comments about what works for you.


Posted on October 18, 2015 and filed under tools, firewood, Homesteading.