M Rives

Andre Wiederkehr wrote:
Any foresters out there who can comment on best practices for harvesting trees? Is it always better for forest health to take exclusively live trees, or is a mix of live and dead sometimes okay or even preferable? What about the idea of preferentially removing "diseased" trees? After all, these are going to be snags soon enough....

This is of interest to me, too. A local forester advised thinning until the trees are 8-10' apart. He suggested keeping the higher timber value trees (cedar instead of pine for example) but did not talk about leaving any standing dead trees. This was a while ago when there were not as many snags.

Now we have an abundance of standing dead Grand Fir trees after a few dry years plus some insect damage. One concern with an 80' tall dead tree is safety. On a windy day it (or just the top of it) might come down at any moment. We also get a few across the drive every winter due to the snow load or soft ground when it thaws. The ones near the drive are at the top of the priority list for removal, especially the Birch which rot from the top and are notorious for dropping widow-makers on the unsuspecting tree cutter. I also remove any which might fall on the house, garden or barn. There are still plenty for wildlife habitat

Here are a few pics from a hike in Glacier NP and some from the woods around our home.

Here's another icebreaker that requires a little advance planning. Each attendee tells the host something about themselves that no one else is likely to know or guess. The host hands out a list of these things and sends the guests off to find the people for each item. The first person to complete the list matching people to unexpected facts is the winner. A prize is optional or perhaps dinner will not be served until there is a winner. It's similar to the superpower icebreaker Doug mentioned but the guests should be instructed not to immediately give it away. The goal is to encourage others to ask them questions to try and figure it out.

You could also arrange seating by the color of people's shirts or hair color, etc. in order to break up groups that already know each other.

Ask the guests to drop their name in a basket. After they are mixed up, each guest randomly draws a name. They have 15 minutes to find that person and jot down 3 interesting facts about them. Next, they get to introduce their person to the rest of the guests.

If we are going to grill a roast we'll submerge it in whole milk overnight in the fridge to tenderize it. Too long and it can become mushy. Cut slits for garlic cloves, add salt and pepper then marinate with butter and worcestershire sauce. Brush with the sauce while grilling to medium rare.

The lazy approach is to put the roast in a crock pot. It seems like using a smaller crock pot works better than a small roast in a large one. Season liberally with McCormack's Montreal Steak, sour salt (citric acid), red wine vinegar (just a little), olive oil (just a little to coat it) and toss in some pre-cooked bacon crumbles. Cook on low for several hours or until done / tender. Usually it is very tender to falling apart.

Burgers for the grill won't work unless you add some fat or pork. It's so lean it will fall apart otherwise. We pan fry venison patties in butter and melt cheese on top. Add salsa if desired.

I would cook it. We've eaten 3 year old venison out of the deep freeze and it was fine.

For ground venison we often do tacos, enchiladas, shepherd's pie or perhaps stroganoff.

Another option is to make pattys out of it and fry them up in butter then add a slice of good cheese to melt on top. We use citric salt and McCormicks Montreal Steak seasoning on them (the same on steaks to grill plus add olive oil and red wine vinegar then let it marinate in that for a short time).

Most of the venison gets frozen but we may can some. The canned venison works great in stroganoff, pepper steak and similar recipes. The canning process will tenderize it so it's a good option for the tougher cuts. It would probably be great in enchiladas but we've never tried it - something to put on the to-do list

My wife quilts. Over the years, she has become quite good, I think... She created an applique design for the cat from a photo then put it all together and quilted it. The horse started as a blank white piece of fabric which she painted and then did more thread painting on top. The larger quilt includes some intersting over/under 3D imagery with the 'ribbons' of thread. She rotates through hanging these and many others on our walls.

We also have some other paintings and sculptures done by our friends which are boxed up until we finish our new home.

Here's a good cost comparison of water heaters including initial cost, fuel, maintenance, etc. I've queued it up to the comparison chart:

https://youtu.be/wt95SE2ogNI?t=625

Also, here's another one discussing the pros and cons of tankless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RFuFBI3r2c

Caleffi provides a good discussion of Legionella and domestic hot water in Idronics 22:

https://www.caleffi.com/sites/default/files/media/external-file/Idronics_22_NA_Safe%20and%20sanitary%20hot%20water%20delivery%20systems.pdf

Our new house (off grid, primarily solar electric with some propane appliances) will have radiant heat from a wood gassification boiler. There will be about 800 gallons of hot water storage which will run from about 120F - 185F. This thermal battery will heat the floor and will also preheat the domestic hot water. In order to make it as seamless as possible, the stored hot water will be pumped through a heat exchanger to preheat cold water going into a traditional tank-style propane water heater. If there is stored heat from a fire it will reduce (or eliminate) the use of propane. In the summer, propane will heat the water or we could light a fire as needed. The output of the propane water heater will go through a mixing valve to provide a safe temperature at the fixtures since the boiler output can be far too hot for safe use.

The heat storage tanks and a bunch of pipes need to be fully insulated and then the heated floor will be fully operational. Performance of the domestic water preheating won't be known for a while yet. So far, the boiler is working great except for one last leak in the piping. It's not a rocket mass heater but the burn chamber looks plenty hot to me as you can see below.

I doubt they are on Permies, but they should be! Jeff, Rose and their daughters are off grid pioneers in BC, Canada. They moved onto their piece of forest and lived in a tent while clearing land and building a home. It's been over 10 years and they still don't have indoor running water (but they do have an impressive water system and hockey pond). They post semi-regular videos about their adventures and off grid living. There are videos describing their power system, micro hydro, a gassifier build, root cellar build, butchering animals, hunting, their version of a willow feeder, gardening, debt free living, etc. Jeff often tells viewers "you can do this" and is very encouraging when it comes to independent off grid living. Here's a link to their Gridlessness Explained playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN0UqxdwirhfxzCSdIKJjGfrJKRE7xPNv

Our power is from a PV array and LiFePO4 battery bank with a generator for backup in the winter. We have a well and gravity water pressure system - there is a storage tank up the hill from the house and well so no power is needed except when the well refills the tank. The primary heat source is a wood stove. Cooking and backup heat use propane. Our Internet access is via fixed wireless radio and our 'home phone' is via the Internet connection (VOIP).

Changing from lead acid batteries to LiFePO4 has been great. Less maintenance and less generator run time. The batteries are a DIY setup based on cells ordered from China.

Overall a good experience, especially when the local electric utility was offline for about three days and we still had power. The only downside is the inability to run large loads like a freeze dryer overnight unless you have a very large battery bank or fall back to a generator. We've been off grid about 6-7 years.

It seems like you could install a pee-trap for the pee and fill it with some magic blue trap sealant. This stuff is used in waterless urinals to reduce the urine smell and prevent anything from the septic tank / sewer from coming back into the room. It's lighter than urine so it will create a floating barrier on top of the fluid in the trap. Urine will pass through it. You will probably want to flush it out with a bucket of water from time to time and add a fresh supply. Here's a link to get you started down this drain, oops, I mean rabbit hole

https://www.waterless.com/blog/getting-to-know-blueseal

Or, you can search for 'waterless urinal fluid' to find out where to buy some. Amazon also has the waterless urinal cartridges which would work instead of a trap if you could figure out a way to plumb it in (maybe a Fernco flexible coupling onto a large pipe with a reducer?).