Winter will be kept outside this year

Our earthbag house is closed in just in time for winter. Roof is finished, windows are all in and the rocket mass heater is mostly constructed as well.  This winter we'll be able to get some interior work done.

Insulated heat riser

The cats enjoying the warmth of the first burn

I really do love rocket stoves. I burned this one for about three hours and ended up with about a cup full of ashes. For the burn I used the slats from about one and a half pallets. These things are just amazing. The exhaust coming out the exit was mostly steam and only warm, not hot. There was a faint smell of wood in the exhaust but not like smoke from any other fire. And the large amount of mass holds this heat for a very long time, releasing it slowly.

Now we are onto to some of many, many other projects. Mrs. Mud has started on building a bat house to be put up near the end of winter. This is going be be a huge help around the homestead. Summer here brings a lot of mosquitoes. I've described my problems with mosquitoes in a previous post.

We've also recently acquired a 7 week old golden retriever pup. So that meant putting a doggy door in to the porch for him, putting up a fence for a dog run and building a dog house. The dog house was actually pretty easy. We re-purposed one of the door forms from the earthbag structure. All the wood in this was originally salvaged from the dump. I'm not sure what purposes it served before I got hold of it, but this will the second thing it has done for me. It may even be part of another project before it ends up heating my butt in the rocket mass heater.

All Aboard?

Got a dream? Got a partner? If you have both, you may have a problem. That is unless your partner shares your dream or at least fully supports it. The bigger your dream is, the more important this is. The size of your partner doesn't really have anything to do with this. If your dream is something like riding a horse one time then you can probably fit that in without causing your significant other any grief.

But if your goals, dreams are long term, lifestyle type things then you have two choices. First, get a new dream. Or, second, get a new partner.

I'm fortunate enough that the goals I have are shared by my wife. She and I have developed goals that fit both our interests. And it's a damned good thing too. Going off grid, living in the middle of nowhere in a frozen wasteland building a house made out of dirt isn't something a lot of people itch for. For all I know we may be the only two.

 





My lovely wife taking a much deserved break



We've moved many, many, many tons of earth in 5 gal. buckets

Recently we were kind of hitting a wall with the design of one of our rocket stoves. We were both frustrated. But since the project is important to both of us, we just worked through it until we arrived at a solution we are both happy with. No bloodshed, no torn larynx, just arriving there together.

Got convergence?

Kill the messenger

Unbelievable. Tom Flanagan is a top adviser to our country's Prime Minister. This idiot was on national television advocating the murder of the wikileaks guy. Is this the best Canada has to offer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtIafdoH_g&feature=player_embedded

You would think that of all the dirty, corrupt backrooms across this country they could do better than this twit. He is stupid enough to make a comment advocating the assassination of a foreign citizen. Oh, wait a minute, he's saying that Obama should do it. Well that makes sense. After all we don't do such things in Canada. We don't because we can't. But just think if we could... Good thing we have such people as Mr Flanagan stroking our leaders. When we finally get the kill skill that our American pals have we'll be ready.

Until then, I will just concentrate on my little hill with windows. Just about finalized the design for the rocket stove mass heater.