Arliss Wirtanen

Any further progress on the post mortem tear down and rebuild? I’m in the planning stages for a rocket fired sauna and would love to see the results.

I have also been sitting back and watching and reading the updates as they come.  Keep on the good track of tweaking, testing and recording!  I think that most folks tend to have "little" spare time and only want to pursue something that has been "proven" to work.  I think this is super awesome to achieve though and would love to trial something like this at some point in Alaska.

I had three 50’ rows of raspberries in my last chicken yard (expanded the chicken yard into the raspberry area) before I moved and loved how it worked. The chickens kept any greenery including grasses and weeds to a minimum between the canes and ate fruit and leaves up to about 24”-30” high. I used standard care of raspberries such as pruning and keeping them to a single line. I saw nothing but good come from my experience. I am doing the same at my current house.

Mike Farmer wrote:That's pretty cool with the sawdust, Arliss! What is the average "cook time" to convert a can of sawdust to char?

I'm not real sure.  i generally just put them in before i go to bed in the evening and the fire is out in the morning and i do it again the next evening.  Taking a guess at it based on the flames I've seen opening the door to look after putting them in (steel door without glass so i have to open it to see how the fire is doing), I would guess somewhere in the 2 hour range would be adequate.  I suppose there is a lot of variables in there but the way I burn that feels about right.  

I've been using the can retorts with packed sawdust for a few weeks now and am still very happy with the results!  I've put a few pictures on here.  for comparison, it takes about 1-1/2 clear plastic containers of sawdust to pack into the cans.

Suzie Park wrote:Newish beekeeper here (about 13 months).
If you build a slotted tray of some sort to hold the eggs aloft AND a barrier underneath, you could check on the eggs without disturbing the bees - you'd have to be able to approach from a side without their entrance or ventilation where they can see you and go on high alert which is stressful.
If you have to turn the eggs every day or similar, this would only make sense if the hive were super close to your house.
Interesting low-tech idea though!

I was thinking similar - a tray that could be fitted between the hives and could be slid in and out without opening the hive or disrupting the bees! seems it wouldn't be too hard to be able to do that!

super interesting.  i wonder if the humidity or hum of the hive helps with the chicks not sticking to the shells in some way...  i have also heard that its critical to turn them and have hand turned them when incubating until i got an auto egg turner.  I will say that i hand turned them usually only once per day and didn't have any issues that jumped out so maybe its less critical than its made out to be...

I also saw the video that David the Good referred to and made a few cans. I found that sawdust packed into them makes a quite decent amount. I’m not sure how long the candy will last but we throw away big cans almost weekly  at our church from meals so I have an almost unlimited supply. So far I’m really thrilled with it. Easy, fast and a constant small supply to throw into the chicken coop (deep litter method) along with my kitchen scraps to inoculate all winter and then be heaped up into the compost pile come spring.

I would also really like to hear others feedback on planting comfrey close to trees.  i planted a few apples last year and put cuttings within a foot of the newly planted trees but they only grew to about 6" tall or so last year so its too early to tell what sort of good or bad it will turn out to be.

I actually just checked with my insurance company today to ask them if it was a problem to replace my existing old wood stove with a “masonry style heater” and they told me it is fine as long as it was not my primary source of heat… BUT with the (rather significant) limitation of it has to be built by a certified installer.