Adam Klaus

Hi y'all-
It's been a while, and I'm excited to be back and building again.  The new context of living deep in the forest of Southern Appalachia offers new challenges and unimagined opportunities.  Here we go!
What's interesting about this context?  
-80 inches of rain per year with no dry season
-A forest biome that goes dormant in the winter, and then explodes into tropical rainforest level life in the summertime.
-Limited sunshine, from the trees and the clouds and the valley.  
-Moderate average temperatures.  Huge swings in seasonal humidity.
-Nearly limitless wood for building, burning, berming, hugelkulturing, mushrooming, etc.  
-I'm a family of five, with three strong smart motivated teenagers to help/lead/inspire.  It's not dad and the kids anymore.  It's a crew.  

About to build a small family home.  Lots could be said, but it's looking like a 20x30 footprint.  Earth-berm, two stories.  Earthen Floor.  2x8 Stud Walls with Cellulose insulation.  Geothermal air tubes with ventilated attic to draw cool(er) and dry(er) air into house during summer.  Big eaves and big windows.  See attached drawing for the scheme of things.

And a super sweet rocket cookstove for heat in the winter.  That's where this thread wants to head.  In the direction of designing the dream stove that is going to be at the center of this home.

Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish, not really knowing much about rocket stove design-

1) A glass cooktop for conventional cooking on wood heat
2) A decent size firebox so I can burn larger chunks of wood and not little sticks
3) Ability to heat a tank of water for bathing
4) 48" x 48" footprint, standard chimney through the roof
5) something I can build myself in a resourceful and economical way
6) ability to cook without pumping an enormous amount of heat into the house
7) there's going to be a gas stove as well, so this doesn't need to do all the cooking.  in summer i'll be cooking outside entirely.  

So far, I'd say the stoves Matt Walker is demonstrating are the most exciting to me.  

Excited to get a big group think going on for this project.  This is going to be epic.

Happy to see this here getting attention!
I've been wondering for years about a simple system to build flowforms, but haven't seen a prototype I could replicate.
The best ones I've seen came from cut and heat-molded PVC pipe fittings.

Let's get this figured out Permies!  I'm excited to collaborate with y'all.

I didn’t see a stripe option.
Just PayPal and crypto.
I tried to pay with PayPal but it asked me to login to permites before completing.
Hope that helps-

I lived right near Montrose, CO for years.  I never once heard of anyone growing this varietal commercially.  I have grown it, the flavor is mediocre.  It is typical but not exceptional for cold and drought hardiness.  It's just a pretty standard apricot.  I honestly think the varietal is a bit of a gimmick.  

I would go with Goldrich for fruit.  It's a superior varietal for Zone 5/6/7.  

FWIW, I've had lots of apricots with sweet pits over the years.  I don't think it's either as rare or as stable of a trait as books might seem to suggest.  

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, bitter apricot pit is called Xing Ren, and is a commonly used medicinal herb.  It's bitter, and used in medicinal-size quantities.  I ate a few with some white chocolate the other night and it's a nice combo.  

Traditional Chinese Medicine also does not have any concept of a sweet pit apricot (never seen it mentioned in any TCM nutritional text), so that's a bit of a head scratcher on origins of the 'Chinese' named cultivar and its association with being 'sweet pit'.

Hope that helps-

Hi Tricia-
Welcome to the forum!  Nice to see you here.  Hope you find a great person for your position.

Yes Jackie, I understand the setup you're describing.  It sounds like a great system for summer months, but I would be concerned about it in the shoulder seasons.  Especially when raising a large batch of birds, the 'cost' of error/failure is compounded so much.  

As an 'insurance policy' I'd like to be able to somehow incorporate backup BTUs from a propane canister into my brooder design.  I've used the simple lightbulb box brooders, and variations on the system you describe with wool fleeces as a ceiling, but I'm thinking my present needs require something a little different.  

Cold and damp is the weather concern, so an external heat source would do a lot of good in mitigating the chilling effects of cold damp mountain air.  

This is a big question for me at the moment too.  

I am trying to devise a plan to be able to brood batches of 100+ chicks, without electricity.

I'm thinking of making some sort of modified hood for the Little Buddy propane heater.
https://www.mrheater.com/little-buddy-heater.html

That's where the trickiness begins.  The Little Buddy puts out more than enough BTUs, at an economical enough rate of fuel consumption.  It's just a matter of containing the heat without blowing up the heater 😜

Anybody tinker with something like this before?  

But I'm still interested in other leads......

Can't plant too many trees, right?

https://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/

When I made my post the recommended thread lead me to the answer.

Smart machines these days.

Hi y'all-
Years ago I had this amazing catalog from an old school 'Seedsman'.  I believe that may have even been in the name of the company.

Now I can't find the catalog and am fortunately in a position to try my hand at landscape scale replanting of Eastern deciduous forest.  I'd like to buy pounds of ash, oak, hickory, basswood, etc.  

Does anyone know the company I'm talking about?   I remember a little 6x11 pamphlet-style catalog.  

Thanks in advance amigos-