Showing posts with label self sufficiency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self sufficiency. Show all posts

December 7, 2015

For me



For my birthday in November, Jason built me this gorgeous wall mounted coat hanging rack! 
Using only salvaged materials he gathered himself (barn board, railroad spikes, old rusty nails, even the handle from an antique iron) he whipped it up for me and had it on the wall the same day. I LOVE it! Instantly, our mudroom looked more cozy and welcoming :) I will gladly take a handmade gift over store-bought any day!




March 16, 2014

Rocket stove, part two





Jason got to put his rocket stove to use this afternoon when he boiled down the small bit of sap he collected over the past two days from our maple grove. The weather hasn't given us a proper maple syrup harvest yet, but we tapped a couple trees last week and collect the small amounts of sap whenever we get a warm day here or there. This way, we are learning the process slowly, and when the trees start to really run, we will already have a sense of everything and will be more prepared and organized. This is the first time we are making our own syrup, but like all other things in life, we tend to just leap in head first! You can learn a lot of things really fast that way!

So far, the syrup we have made has been AMAZING. It doesn't taste like any maple syrup I have had before; it is sort of smokey with a hint of chocolate to it. Really! So I am excited to harvest a whole bunch more.

Jason built this rocket stove from scratch, never having made one before. He modified it from his original basic design and when we put it to the test today, it was very efficient. It cooked that sap down super fast using just sticks! It is really quite amazing. 

February 9, 2014

Jason's homemade rocket stove, so far!






Jason built this rocket stove yesterday. He still needs to add some inner insulation and do some finishing touches, but I think it's pretty awesome already.
We are planning to use it for maple syrup time, so that we can boil down the sap using this stove instead of a big outdoor fire, as rocket stoves are immensely efficient when it comes to fuel usage, using just a fractional amount of wood in comparison to any other traditional wood-burning method or device. It's amazing, really. One day I hope we can expand on this idea and build a rocket mass heater directly into our home. That would be just so wonderful. I do love to be warm (:
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