evan's ant village log

Day 251

Look at that nice little stone arch! Someone could probably stack some kindling in there or put up a little nativity scene or something.

I split that face cord Paul donated to the experiment and got it stacked up at the Abbey. We spent most of the day at basecamp though, so no fire in there today.

Jocelyn cooked a delicious scallop soup and I tried it even though I'm usually not into seafood and it was totally good! Thanks Jocelyn!

Day 252

I cut down a little charlie brown christmas tree and made a little base for it. So festive!

It was snowing so we threw a bunch of seeds out onto some of the hugelberms on Ava. I've never tried this method of planting before, but it seems cool. The idea is that the seeds will get mulched by the snow and then the frost heaves will bury them and then they will come up in the spring when they're darn good and ready.

Those legs and belly cuts of Sir Chops have been sitting in salt for a while now, and I've been draining off the liquids, but now they seem dry enough to hang, so hang them we did. What could be a better homestead holiday decoration than salted pork hanging from the ceiling?

Day 253

Finally got it up to 85 in Allerton Abbey today. It didn't take an all-nighter after all, it just took a few hours of constantly packing more wood into the firebox whenever any more could fit.

It got pretty uncomfortably hot, actually. Just to be safe we put up a heat shield between the stove and the nearest wooden posts. And as soon as we reached the target temp we stopped feeding the stove and let it die down. The cob walls stayed quite warm to the touch for hours afterwards.

Just 9 more days of blasting the stove and then the really interesting part of the experiment begins.

Day 254

After much plotting and scheming, I'm going to be hosting a series of workshops up here at the lab over the next few months. You can read more and sign up here: PEA Workshops (Permaculture Experience Ava)

The workshops will have a gamelike achievements component, and while I'm still working out what all that will entail, I made some prototype wooden medals.

It feels like summer here inside the Abbey when we're trying to get it up to 85; the perfect time to make a snowcone. This one is beet-flavored. Yum.

Dan downloaded the temperature data from the past few days and made an awesome graph showing both indoor and outdoor temperatures. Thanks for the data display, Dan!

evan l pierce wrote:Day 254
Dan downloaded the temperature data from the past few days and made an awesome graph showing both indoor and outdoor temperatures. Thanks for the data display, Dan!

Interesting. I am not sure... so I should ask On Dec 11, had there been any heating done? That is, what was the base temperature before adding heat to the building? 44F is already impressive and useful. What are the units on the bottom? I am thinking 20 min blocks?

Things I see: It looks like the mass temperature is 45ish. When there is no heating on the 14th, the curve looks like it would level out around that temperature. Dec 15->16 drop, though shorter, looks to be following the same curve. (this says to me that the Sun warms the earth a lot in the Summer) Dec 16->17 shows that the outside temperature does have a lot of influence on the inside temperature. The down going curve is much steeper and does not look like it would even out at 45F.

Question: how is the temperature gathering device inside situated? Does it have a window it can radiate to? Is there a panel between the device and the window? Should there be?

Some experiments that would be interesting to me:

A thin foil covered panel against the window behind where the measuring device is placed, to see if the local inside temperature in that part of the dwelling is different at all.

If it is, take the same foil covered panel outside the same window with a space of 3 feet or so parallel to the window and see if there is any difference with that. (the panel being outside may require a panel 4 times <2x in each direction> as big for similar effect <radiation is spherical> )

Both of these ideas are to answer the question of how much radiation effects heat loss. And can a permanent wall outside be as effective (or effective enough) that it could be a fully passive substitute for an inside panel that would require daily manual placement (not passive).

Daylight is important for health, more important when it is colder outside and the day is short (or maybe not... On a short day the occupant may spend all daylight hours outside anyway). Yet windows are amongst the weakest part of the of the insulation envelope. Extra glacing is expensive and negatively effects energy collection from the Sun and is not that effective anyway. Are there better ways of improving this situation?

some more armchair musings.

Day 255

There's a good four inches of snow on the ground outside, and in an effort to postpone the day when we'll need to trudge uphill through it hauling in more drinking water, we've been melting a few pots' worth of snow on the rocket stove most everyday. It doesn't meet all our water needs, though perhaps it could if we were more diligent about it, but it sure helps keep the ducks in warm drinking water.

Kai was the last occupant of the Abbey before Sharla and I moved in, and besides running the stove some during his stay here, and leaving us with many gallons of water, he also collected and staged some logs that make great firewood once bucked and split, plus he stockpiled a bunch of cardboard. Some of the cardboard he even rolled into little logs, perfect for starting fires. At first the sheer volume of cardboard in the stockpile seemed overwhelming, but sitting in front of the fire while rolling and tying cardboard logs is steadily whittling away at it. Plus it gives me a chance to practice my knots. If I'm going to be teaching knot-tying at these PEA Workshops then I better make sure I know how to actually tie some knots. Maybe I'll even post a picture of a new knot on here every day for a few days.

It's beginning to look a lot like Solstice,
With the sun so low in the sky.
A tree with some lights,
wood to warm long cold nights,
and we'll feel like it's already July.

I'm glad to see the Abbey getting so toasty! That square knot looks much better for keeping the cardboard from just springing open again like was happening to the ones I was making. Makes me anxious to get back and hack up some firewood!

I was going to say that doesn't look like a proper square knot. I know the thing I was most disappointed with "Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" was their incorrect knot usage.

So I looked it up to make sure I was right and learned something. Never heard of a Thief Knot before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_knot
^ the grid display under Related knots is pretty cool.

Ron Helwig wrote:I was going to say that doesn't look like a proper square knot. I know the thing I was most disappointed with "Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" was their incorrect knot usage.

Yes it looks much like a granny knot. (still suitable for this use) unless the the outside crossover is twisted.