John Weiland

Thank you for all of these responses.....very helpful in guiding my decision here.  I have reached out to the US vendor of these stoves and they *may* have exact replacement bricks for this stove, so I will hear back from the person responsible for those issues sometime this week.  Thank you for your offer, Cristobal, to cut a new brick or two from your stock piece.....I will let you know what I find out about direct replacement and may still contact you about that if that vendor is not able to provide one.  I'm not sure if the stone is brick or soapstone, ..... only can say it seems rather soft compared to the firebrick I've had in other US-made stoves.  One more option I'm considering is to move this broken brick down in the brick-column within the stove:  The broken one was the top-most brick in the column.  If I were to remove the next brick in line and then replace it with the broken one, by having now a whole brick on TOP of the broken brick may give it more integrity..??..less inclined to pop out of the column as it was doing in its broken state.  I will report back with the solution once that comes to pass.... Thanks again for prompt and expert input!

A quick interjection....  It's only been in the past week that our entire crop.... paste tomato (seed saved so long ago can't recall variety), Yugo, and Russian Persimmon....really started to ripen.  Pretty rare to be in September with green tomatoes, but seems a lot are in this boat.  Now we are processing like crazy for freezer and canning.  This is the typical month for first frosts, so we have tarps at the ready to extend the ripening period.

....and dusting off some green tomato recipes!

This brick (photos below) is from a Serbian-made woodstove imported into the US.  When whole, the brick is about 14 inches long.  Because of the narrow dimensions of the brick, I'm not sure if there is a cement or glue that can fuse the two pieces together to be a strong as new??.......  A local woodstove supplier did not have brick of that length to cut down, so would need to custom order which might be pretty expensive.  I've reached out to the US importer to see of they have a stash of bricks for these stoves, but have not heard back from them yet.  Opinons as to whether this could be repaired?.....and if so, what kind of glue or cement to use for a good bond?  Thanks!

Bumpy, the baby hippo....   https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/bumpy

John F Dean wrote:sanctuary…for me, my wife, the deer, our shelter pup, and our shelter and foundling cats. We have a slightly s shaped driveway through trees and overhanging vines.  People have told me they are afraid to use my driveway … which makes it perfect for me.

Ha!....yes, I can relate.  Wife's endeavor has been rescue...primarily pigs, but many things that have either wandered onto the property or come along with other visitors for the ride.  We live in a sub-region that does not "do" gated driveways.  But our animals have free run of the fenced property so the gate is a must.  On more than one occasion, a delivery person has opened the gate to enter.....even with large chest outside the gate that says "Please leave all deliveries here".  Most contractors and delivery people are so accustomed here to walk onto a property (with owners typically gone) to install cable services, read meters, etc.  But the sanctuary part is the main focus....from mammals to birds to monarch caterpillars.

Tom Bexley wrote:...
I may have to experiment with that one. Maple syrup is too expensive to waste on a bad experiment though 😄

Carrots sauteed with dijon in butter/margarine with a touch of sugar is a go-to staple for Thanksgiving dinner.....have not tried using maple syrup but my salivary glands are giving me a thumbs up! :-P

Finally getting back to this thread now that some of deep summer chores on on the wane...

The 12V build that I described above was tested today in some water pumping and had a somewhat surprise result.  For details on the pumping set-up see my entries here -- https://permies.com/t/179996/Sprinkler-pumps-shallow-pumps-irrigation

So even though I'm mixing brands, I decided to try linking (in parallel) my 100Ah battery build with a recently-purchased 100Ah Ecoworthy 12V LiFePO4 battery.  Bluetooth allows me to connect to each separately for monitoring parameters during operation.  The two batteries are supporting a 0.75 hp 120V electric water pump pulling water for our garden.  The set-up with the 3000W pure sine wave inverter is shown below....tonight's test had the system running for about 30 min.

While all worked well, I was curious about the imbalance between the two batteries in terms of amp draw. Thus, when using two Ecoworthy batteries purchaed all at the same time and starting at the same state of charge, they both equally split the 60A load into 30A to each battery.  In the configuraton shown below, the Ecoworthy was drawing 40+ amps and the home-build around 20A or a bit less.  The BMS in the home-build is set to deliver 100A from the battery if need be, so it doesn't appear to be limiting the amperage output this way.  When I used the battery alone to run a vacuum cleaner some weeks back it delivered 40A no problem, so this "seems" to rule out a connection/wire bottleneck, yes?  Any ideas here regarding the imbalance?  As an aside, the BMS in the home-build was keeping the cells themselves balnced just fine.  Thanks for any suggestions or questions....

I don't know if the idea for it came from her Depression-era upbringing but mother used to make us peanut butter sandwiches in which the peanut butter was mixed with maple syrup. She did grow up near some Mennonite colonies and they were known to use it on occasion, so maybe from there?  I agree it's like gold....was it more common and plentiful in North American past?  Something about that flavor with a pancake/waffle breakfast that includes bacon/sausage just can't be matched!....

Timothy Norton wrote:A little nutmeg in savory dishes is a favorite of mine. I was confused why historically American colonists back in the ye olden times used nutmeg in nearly everything so I tried it. It just gives it a little something something. Use it sparingly, it works well with cheesy dishes too.

This seems to be one of the killer ingredients as well in the background of bologna and hot dogs.  If I make vegan versions of either, that pinch of nutmeg is the ticket!  Another secret ingredient is mushroom powder.  The 'umami body' from it can be quite satisfying.  One more:  Faux "Lawrey's Seasoning Salt" homemade with the crucial flavoring of celery powder.

Joao Winckler wrote:Yeah the August garden is genuinely grim isn't it. Everything looks half dead or completely out of control, and you're supposed to be excited about planting autumn crops......

This fits with the fact that 'August Angst' was a north German poet and author of sad, fatalistic verse and prose.        ..... ;-)     (kidding)

But yes, that burnout feeling is very real, especially after a challenging year where it took more than typical effort to keep everything alive and thriving.  For us, the rejuvenating feature is the arrival soon of frost:  Most plants are done, biting insects disappear, and fall colors appear.  The schools have kidnapped the little ones and their families away from the local state parks, so hiking and boating can be a more peaceful endeavor. The heat and humidity disappear and with that returns so much more energy in daily routines.....profiting days ever shortened by the approach of winter.....  (!!!  Ackkkk!!!)