Neale Inglenook

I feed my starter daily and use up most of my discard by making crumpets:

2 cups discard
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar

Fry on a griddle with ghee or other high temp oil.

I got tired of using crumpet rings, so I just fry them like pancakes.

Most of my kitchen tools are simple, durable and can be used for diverse tasks (i.e. the chefs knife), but a good tool of this kind under $30 is hard to come by except maybe second hand.

Under that price threshold, the two devices I really appreciate are a hand crank food mill with interchangeable sieves and a whirley pop. Both can replace electrical gadgets, sometimes with superior results. The food mill is useful for all sorts of food processing especially for home canning. The Whirley Pop makes superior popcorn IMO. It only has the one use, but if you like popcorn it’s worth it.

Here is an article from low tech magazine that has some info to offer:

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/06/small-wooden-wind-turbines.html

Not so much the commercial installation described at the top, though it does say that there are ‘several wind-based rural electrification initiatives in Mongolia, Nepal, Peru and Nicaragua’ using locally produced turbines.

John F Dean wrote:Hi Neale,


Welcome to Permies.

Thanks, I have been skimming these forums recently as I look for info that could be useful for this new homestead.

Glad to be joining the community and very much appreciating all I’m finding here.

S Trevor wrote:Hi Neale, congrats on the find along the Maine Coast!

If you start harvesting the coppiced trees, consider counting the rings, getting an average timespan on the growth to your preferred firewood sizes (no-split, one-split, all-nighters, etc).

Once you determine how much wood you need for a season, and how big an area you need to harvest to reach the number of cords you use, you'll be able to plan it out in sections by number of years it takes to grow your annual needs.

That could help you to plan out a firewood "garden" for several years/decades into the future.  It'll also let you look ahead at road/trail maintenance to access the next couple years' harvest spots.

There are additional considerations as you get started, of course.  Year after year, the successive growth of your existing standing trees will mean you require less area than the previous year to meet your needs.  But, ballpark figures always help.

Cheers, and good luck with your new spot!

Thanks! That’s a very succinct and useful approach. Appreciate it.

Thanks very much!

Hi there,

We have just moved to a few acres of woodland in mid coast Maine. Mostly red oak. Some poplar and birch, and some conifers.

We are looking to manage the woodland for its health, for fuel wood, and eventually for edible and medicinal understory plants.

As far as I can tell the land was logged a few decades ago, and the woods have grown back fairly densely and all the same height. Near to the logging road that runs through the property, several stumps have resprouted in what I take to be accidental coppices.

We plan to do some cutting this winter to start preparing next year’s woodpile. Any advice on where to begin that cutting would be appreciated. Continue the (accidental) coppicing and cut some or all of the stems (currently between 5-8 inches in diameter)? Or cut larger trees in a group to begin a new coppice and let light in, create variable landscapes?

Many thanks.