Jeremy VanGelder

I like www.wunderground.com for finding out existing weather conditions. It is hooked up to all of the personal weather stations that people publish to the internet. So when I am at work I can find the temperature within a half mile of my house. Their Wundermap is a great resource.

Here is the SKIP badge for knitting a pair of socks. Synthetics are not allowed. I wonder how those socks are holding up? Maybe some of the people who have earned the badge would be interested in making socks as a cottage industry?

paul wheaton wrote:

Biophilic Masonry Heater?

George Carlin once said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

The name "rocket mass heater" should make no difference.  this stuff is epicly good.  But that is the exercise we are attempting right now - what if the name can make all the difference?  Then what name should we pick?

"Butt Warmer" or "Butt Heater" describes one of the functions of an RMH. And it sounds funny, because butts are funny. It makes you ask, "how does it warm butts?"

Aaron from the Gansey blog uses spring steel needles that he cuts from 3/32" or 2.4mm music wire.

They are music wire - spring steel. They fit into cylindrical needle adapters (mostly lined with brass).  Yes, at this time, my favorite sock (and hat) needles are 12" long pieces of music wire. (And by using 6 of them, I can knit a gansey for a big guy. However, by using real 18" long gansey needles (with flat ends) I can knit faster than I can with the 12" needles, so sweaters still get knit on the longer needles (now with flat ends).

Hey Trace, our own Ashley Cottonwood ran a community composting business with the help of chickens for several years. You can read about it at the thread Composting 30,000 pounds of food waste

There was also a video of a place in Vermont that had a massive composting setup. They dumped windrows of compost, let their chickens free range on it, and moved it with excavators. I haven't found that one again, yet.

Boots Lisa and Stephen have improved some of the window quilts at Allerton Abbey

Hi Yvan, that looks very similar to the Cottage Rocket. With one important difference. You want the wood feed to be shorter than the riser. Otherwise the fire might burn up the wood feed instead of rocketing up the riser. The Cottage Rocket has the wood feed down low in the barrel.

We put a lot more dirt on the hugel today. It comes up to my knee, now. I might put some manure on it in the spring and then I plan to plant it.

This is going to happen next week? That came up fast. It looks like a great event.