Phil Stevens

Gray Henon wrote:18,700

Did two burns since the last post, the smaller of the two (pictured) consisted of some starter brush and around 1.5 cords of bone dry yellow pine out of my wood shed.  I decided to char the clear splittable wood in my shed and replace it with knotty wood that won’t char well.  I also placed an eight foot section of old six inch stove pipe on the ground from the edge to the center of the pile.  I used the pipe to light the pile right at the core, where I typically have trouble getting a complete char.  I figured lighting the pile and ducting air to the center would help.  I did indeed get a more complete burn, But, hard to say if it was the pipe or the bone dry pine.  Almost certainly one of our hottest burns ever.  

The second pile contained a large amount of kindling sized cherry and maple, also a first.  On top of that we added a massive amount of bamboo from winter feeding.  Maybe one of our longest burns ever.  Got a really nice complete char and an enormous yield.  Looking forward to the numbers on this one!

5/24/26

I can feel the heat coming off the photo, I swear...

When I build a pile, I've found that having a hollow core really helps with the quality of the burn. What I like to do is use some of the bigger lengths to make a sort of jenga tower/log cabin framework about 1 m square and as tall as about 1/3 of the intended pile height. When the "walls" are complete I lay long pieces to make a "roof" and then build the pile around and over this. What happens is as the pile burns down from the top and eventually collapses into the middle, there isn't a mass of unburnt pieces at the bottom. This makes for a more complete process.

Yep, perfect.

Jay Angler wrote:"Unsightly Stump" is in the eye of the beholder.

If you know someone with a chainsaw, have them chainsaw out the middle of the stump from the top and you have a natural planter! If you don't want to plant into the hole, fill it with sawdust and give it regular doses of Fertilizer P, and it should rot faster.  And yes, I expect the right kinds of mushrooms would happily live on it!

I can confirm thanks to years of controlled studies that peeing on stumps does indeed make them go away faster. It's like magic, only slower.

Sara Hartwin wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:New concept to me:  Time Banks where simple, neighborly exchanges where every hour helps someone else.

How many are there?

I put up a new wiki thread about time banks, Anne. Maybe the maps or Wikipedia article will help answer your question? It looks like there are multiple directories, and not all time banks are registered in the same place.

There have been ups and downs to the movement over the years and since most of the directory-type resources are run by volunteers, they are subject to changing life circumstances, burnout, etc. Same applies to timebanks themselves. One of the best indicators of success for a timebanking initiative is having a paid coordinator to keep things running smoothly.

These are similar to lots of other "alt economy" structures in the way they show resurgence when times get tough, and then often go dormant or fade away when things are not so dire. So we saw lots of systems get put together after the 2008 crash, only to atrophy several years later because of a mix of reasons (like volunteer burnout, waning interest from the community, etc).

There are other software platforms that communities use for timebanking. I work closely with the developer and support team for Hamlets and Time2Connect.

The timebank run by Project Lyttelton was the central hub of the recovery after the 2010 Christchurch earthquake cut them off from the main city.

Living Economies timebanking resources

I have a friend who's been living on a corner of the property for over six years in a caravan that he bought brand new at the time. It's got some advantages, like the plug-and-play integrated solar + battery system, but now that age is starting to kick in we are seeing exactly what Josh describes. Electrical stuff has been relatively easy to repair and replace with commodity items, but then there are things like the flush pump and actuator for the toilet which had to be sourced from the manufacturer.

The first big-ticket failure just happened recently when the LPG heating unit started cutting out. It provides heat for the van and hot water, so initially it was a nuisance when he had to turn it back on manually. The place that he took it for service* said they could shoehorn in a generic set of separate space and water heaters, but it would require custom work. Ordering in a replacement unit was the preferred choice...for something like $7K. Woof. He's biting the bullet, and this week it quit altogether, so it's scheduled to go in a few days.

The staff at the shop were amazed that the heater had worked reliably for more than six years, given that these things typically see a few days of service every few months in most situations. Our hypothesis is that daily running kept problems like condensation and oxidation at bay, whereas a holiday-only van might have seen a failure in a similar time frame with only a small fraction of actual use. Still, when compared to a RMH in a small dwelling that can be patched and rebuilt with cob and firebrick, there are a lot of technological supports that need to be in place.

*This is another dependency: needing to hire someone with a big grunty tow vehicle to take the caravan to the shop. The plus side is that they can turn things around faster when they're doing the work at their place, but it means securing everything for the trip and hoping it's a same-day affair or else arranging a place to sleep that night. Getting one of the team out to our place to work on the caravan is iffy at best and if they need "that one tool" that they didn't bring it could be a showstopper.

Leaf miners are hard to get at by their nature. They're under the leaf surface for a reason. But like lots of sucking and chewing pests, if they're not impairing the tree's overall productivity then I'd just accept that they're part of your ecosystem and you're going to get a percentage of mined leaves. Plucking off the badly affected ones and burning them or feeding to herbivores is a good low-tech control method.

I like the stainless steel mesh option. Natural fibres not only will need replacing frequently, but also will trap dust and pollen, which will provide a habitat for things to grow that you might not want in potable water.

Flint corn and pinto beans produce well for me here, and all the better because they give me a tie back to the foodways of the place I came from. We're just getting into the cool part of the year, with two light frosts earlier this week, so it's officially soup season and I think I'll cook up a big pot of posole this weekend. I can just about live on that stuff. Complete protein, nixtamalised corn so no niacin problems, and I can just let a pot of it simmer on the wood fire all day. A good crop of chiles ripening in the glasshouse, too, so I can get the heat levels right.

Earthbag or hyperadobe is a possibility for creating a domed roof. Make a form in the shape of a catenary arch to guide the placement and the result is a very strong, durable structure. As long as it has a good weatherproof coating, of course.