handling firewood

Firewood will not be able to heat us all after the fossil fuels are gone, but with careful stewardship and fewer homes, it will be a way for many of us to keep warm in those places that get cold in the winter and have enough rainfall to grow trees.

For now though, I am lucky enough to be in a place where wood heat is feasible and sustainable for the local population density. The climate and terrain in Southwest Wisconsin are conducive to sustainable wood harvesting. 

I have projects in mind for improving the efficiency of our house, but in the mean time, we are burning around three cords of wood a winter. 

While splitting wood by hand, I often just kind of go blank, or "get in the zone", but the mind sometimes wanders. Can't tell you how many times I silently repeated that old saying "chopping your own wood warms you twice- once when chopping it, and once when burning it". Attribution is to many, but it's a pretty obvious conclusion to anyone who splits wood by hand.

But then I thought about how many times I touch the wood with my hand, ( and wearing out gloves) and began counting. After I drop a dead elm with my chainsaw ( not ready to use my crosscut on felling just yet, maybe next year) here are the steps to get in to the Russian furnace.
1. From the ground in to my truck
2. From truck to a pile next to the splitting station
3. From the ground on to the top of a big old oak round 
4. (smaller and more pieces now)From the ground to my wood shed
5. From my wood shed into a wheelbarrow
6. From the wheelbarrow in to a bin in our sunroom
7. From the bin in to the house and into the woodbox
8. From the woodbox in to the Russian furnace

and I guess we won't count the steps the ashes go through before they become soap or soil amendment.While the various handling steps don't wear you out like the actual splitting, they do make one appreciate how much time and labor we replace with fossil fuels these days. 

I was talking about firewood with a neighbor, and mentioned that I preferred not to use box elder because of the low but content, and he stated that density and btu content are directly correlated, to which my immediate reaction was, gosh, that makes sense, but is it true? So I went looking for info to see for myself. Could find nothing on the internet that charted the correlation, so I found sources for various densities, and other sources for btu content, and graphed the two.

The chart below has density is in pounds (LBS) per cubic foot (FT3) and the heat content is in MBTU/cord. A cord of wood is a volume 4 feet by four feet by eight feet. Quite the mish mash of old units, but this doesn't really matter when looking for a correlation. 

In general, it is a pretty good linear relationship. Red cedar, apple, and shagbark hickory are the three that are a bit above the line, meaning that they have less btu content than one would extrapolate from their density. Shagbark hickory had the highest density, and also a very good btu content. Ironwood had the best btu content per unit volume, so it would be the best firewood to use, except it is less common, and does not grow to a large size. In my general area, oak is by far the most common wood for heating, as it has a good heat content, and is a common tree here. There are a few firewood or common trees for our area that I did not find numbers for, so this chart is of course not definitive, and I also can't vouch for the sources I used, but in general I think I've confirmed the  common sense notion that the density and heat content should have a linear relationship. Here is the data in tabular form. These are trees for the U.S., but I would imagine the relationship holds for other species.

alder	14.8	23.7
apple	21.6	46.5
black ash	17.9	32.8
green ash	21.1	38
white ash	21.6	39.8
aspen	13.7	25
basswood	13.7	24.8
american beech	22.7	40.8
blue beech	23.7	44.7
grey birch	19.5	34.4
yellow birch	22.1	41.7
white birch	20	37.4
butternut	13.2	25.2
redcedar	12.1	30.7
white cedar	11.6	19.6
black cherry	19.5	33.3
american elm	18.4	34.5
balsam fir	13.2	25.8
shagbark hickory	25.3	50.53
ironwood	26.4	47.5
black locust	23.2	44.2
honey locust	23.7	41.5
black maple	21.1	38.7
red maple	20	34
sugar maple	23.2	42.2
bur oak	22.7	41.8
red oak	22.1	41
white oak	24.7	44.3
jack pine	14.8	28.7
red pine	17.9	31.6
white pine	13.2	23.2

A final word for anyone heating, or contemplating heating with firewood- KEEP IT DRY! My pet peeve is heating with unseasoned or wet firewood. So much energy is wasted turning water to steam that it is a criminal waste, one might as well chuck half the wood you've worked so hard on into the nearest ravine. I see it all the time though, especially those who have the wood boilers.

I might rant on that another time, but for now, KEEP IT DRY!

A tour of the root cellar

When we started looking for a farm property six years ago, I had been inclined to find open land with no buildings, so I could build a very energy efficient and probably earth sheltered house, as well as lay out the overall infrastructure with permaculture principles in mind. 

But the house and property we ended up buying had enough cool features that I let go of that idea. (Good thing too, as I now think the project might have been quite the strain, as we were both still working and not living close enough to make very quick progress)
One of those features was an attached root cellar. Since the house is hillside and partially earth sheltered, the root cellar is accessed from inside the house, on the upslope side. 

While the root cellar does have a couple design flaws, it is quite serviceable, and since it adjoins the laundry/utility room, it is very handy. Who wants to go out in the snow, clear snow from the door, and chip some ice before getting a jar of canned tomatoes in February?

Here is a quick tour of our stores this fall.

We have a set of bins, a wooden shelf set, and two sets of plastic shelves. With the humidity and dark, the wood needs to be rot resistant. I used cedar leftovers, and some black locust leftovers. 

The bottom half of the bins has butternut squash, potatoes, and acorn squash. Apples were here earlier, till we made the cider. These all store well, and the potatoes were from our own seed potatoes saved in the root cellar from last season. Down and to the left you can see the hard cider we bottled a couple weeks ago.

Top half of this bin tower has onions, more acorn squash, and on top are seeds in glass jars.

This shelf set has dry beans, spinach noodles, dried apple slices, apple butter, apple pie filling, apple sauce, spiced apple rings ( we had a good apple year) dried potato slices, and some peach pie filling.We found making noodles is a good way to put up extra spinach, and it works well with basil also.

 These shelves have pickles, green beans, dehydrated kale, and some beverages.

 The wooden shelves have pickles, tomato sauce, pasta sauce, green beans, chicken broth, and some odds and ends. You can also see our garlic. We did not have a great garlic year, but have already planted next years garlic, so what's left is all for eating. It should last till late winter, but won't get us to next summer.

A lot of this does not really need to be in a root cellar, but it would not fit in the pantry or kitchen storage, so this makes a fine place till we need more true root cellar storage for more root crops or fruits. We haven't harvested the parsnips yet, but the carrots were a bust this year, and hope to get better results and store some in here next year. 

A lot of our veggie storage is in our chest freezer, but over time we hope to can or dehydrate as much as we can to reduce dependence on the freezer. We try new dehydrating or canning experiments each year, some work, and some don't.

Most of this is from our own trees and garden, but not all of it. The peaches, acorn squash, and beverages are purchased. We increase our dry bean plantings each year, and have enough for year round eating now, but most of those are stored in the pantry. 

Two things I hope to modify on the root cellar are a better air vent setup, and a bit more dirt on the roof. These will both get it colder, and keep it colder longer in to summer.

water collection

Finally made some progress in capturing and storing rainwater. The north half of the barn roof now flows in to a 350 gal. ( 1325 l) tank, and I have installed a gravity driven drip system to our fruit and nut trees downhill of the barn. 

The routing might look goofy, but I was trying to place supports that tied in to the internal structural, find a level spot, keep the tank on the north side where sunlight ( causes algae) is minimized, as well as not being below the window.  

This is still not enough capture, so I plan to expand the storage to catch even more of the rainwater. Plans for the south roof flow are to irrigate the south garden. When I get that side finished I'll post an update with photos as well. 


Barn is 30 ft. ( 9m) x 60 ft. (18m), so a 1 inch (25mm) rainfall will provide 150 cubic feet, ( 4.25 m3) or 1100 gallons (4200 l)

Since each downspout is catching half the roof, this setup could potentially get 550 gallons (2100 l) from each inch of rain.

Average annual rainfall for here is 36.56 in. ( 928mm), which is a generous amount of rain, so I really just want to save enough to get through drought stretches as long as this setup is just for trees and supplementing rain in the veg gardens. 

If we decide to try to rely on rain for more uses, and the well pump for less, then the need is a great deal larger. For now, I plan to increase storage enough to capture rain from April through August, which is about 17.6 in ( 450mm). That's a lot, but I would stay with above ground storage, and simply drain and shut down in the winter. 

If we try for year round use and storage, then insulation or an in gound cistern will be needed. 

The drip system has had some problems to consider. First, it was hard to find components that are suitable for low pressure . Many catalogues have "low pressure" fittings, but this means 5-15 psi ( 35 kPa- 105 kPa). Since I am using only gravity, I have much less than than, somewhere in the order of 5-15 feet of head. I found some that are marginal, but the flow is still not very good.

Second, running it above ground means that once grass and weeds grow up, it is hard to find! I put out a few flags, but need to do some more to make sure we don't damage it and can find it if maintenance is needed.

Third- It will be hard to drain all the way before freezing temps arrive, without taking it all up and coiling it. I may try to blow it out with air.

I got this finished late in the season, but it should really give the trees a boost next year.

solar dehydrating update

Now that we've done some dehydrating, here is what we've found with the design.

As I mentioned in the prior post, the design I used was not the product of some company or solar design engineer, but the result of homesteader ingenuity. 

So far, were have dehydrated greens and fruit. Collards and lacinado kale were blanched before dehydrating, and they dried quite well, in less than one day. Apple and peach slices both dehydrated well, and are now stored in glass jars. If it's cloudy or you don't get the fruit in the dehydrator first thing, it might take two days. We just leave the fruit in the dehydrator overnight and have had no problems. After they are dry, we store in airtight glass jars.


Our "summer kitchen", blanching collards on the propane cookstove.

The dehydrator has four individual trays that can be taken out for loading with food or for cleaning. We found that sugary food like peach slices will stick to the stainless screening, so we used the plastic screens from our electric dehydrator on top of the  stainless screen. Plastic sticks less, and is easier to clean up in the kitchen sink. 

Picture shows kale that has been blanched and the center rib cut out, starting the drying process.

Some observations: 
Occasionally an ant has found its way in to the dryer area if it's cloudy or overnight, but normally, if the sun is out, it is so hot insects don't go in. 

The temperature and air flow is not quite as good in the lower two sections. This is actually handy for drying herbs, in which you want a low temperature. For fruit slices, we just switch top and bottom trays half way through so they finish equally. I don't yet have a temperature probe, but plan to get one, then we'll know how hot the two levels get.

Next year, maybe we'll try jerky. The two dehydrators have now been taken down and stored in the barn for the winter.

tender young trees

This past late spring, I attended a workshop on foraging wild edibles. I'll do a post on it later. One of the points stressed for many foods was to harvest when young and tender. The young shoots, leaves and stems all will have milder taste, are easier to eat and digest, and are easy to pick. 

It turns out that we were being informed of a fact that every herbivore on the planet already knows.

And so it goes here in Wisconsin, where the deer, rabbits, mice and voles all look forward to the tender new plants we humans grow with seeds, or poke in the ground as seedlings. Of special concern to me are all the trees I have been planting. Most are bare root seedlings, which are only one year old when planted. A few of the nursery purchased fruit trees are older, but still tasty apparently. 

I'm no expert, but it is obvious that at some point, the bark is sufficient barrier and no longer attractive to these animals, as once trees get beyond a certain size, they are not girdled or killed ( no beavers around here).

Until that time, I have been protecting my young charges with various methods. 

This apple tree is getting the deluxe package, with hardware cloth protection against rabbits and mice down around the first 16" (400mm) of trunk, the reinforcing wire cage to ward off deer, and cardboard mulch weed suppression. I even have the rainwater drip irrigation strung to it now, but it's not quite functional. I'll describe that another time.

This oak, started from acorn, had the sod flipped, placed around the hole to form a depression so watering will stay and soak in, and the small cage for deer and partial rabbit protection. It is getting watered occasionally this summer till its roots can develop below all the annual grasses.

Other trees I've planted don't get quite this nice treatment, and many don't ever get watered. 

All the hazelnuts and chestnuts from 2012 were planted dormant bare root with a mechanical seedling transplanter and got the spiral plastic trunk wrap for winter mouse and vole protection . No watering, but are mowed next to several times during the summer.

Since there are well over 2500, in rows out in our field, the time and cost to do more protection:  tree tubes ($) or weeding ( time, aching back) or watering (equipment, heavy well use) have made the low input, low effort management style an easy choice.

I planted some more chestnuts ( 120) this spring, but they were tubelings from Badgersett, and would be more vulnerable to dry times, so we have been watering and hand trimming around them as the summer rains slowed down. We did no cages though, so have had some deer predation. They were planted similarly to the oaks. We'll put on plastic spirals before winter sets in.

I also planted the start of a hedge experiment ( why are there no hedges in the U.S.? Any info I've found is from the U.K.) The osage orange and hawthorn were bare root seedlings  and got planted with a dibble. I've weeded a couple times, but no watering. They are far from the house. I'll do an update on the hedge next spring, when I see how many make it though one winter.

Our rabbit fence, or The Maginot Line redux

We are in our sixth year gardening here, and the first full season while actually living here. Over this time, we've slowly been upgrading our infrastructure, learning from our mistakes, and getting a bit better at growing our own food.

Last year, we spent quite a  bit of money to put a combination deer/rabbit fencing around our two main garden plots. We used eight foot fence posts, cattle panels and rabbit fencing to show those critters who was boss. A bit hard to see in the the photo, but the rabbit fence is the lower 24", and the cattle panels extended up to around seven feet above the ground.

The deer got the message, and besides there is a cornucopia of green growing things all about and surrounding the garden anyway. 

The rabbits did not get the message. 

But my beef is not with the rabbits. Rabbits will do what rabbits do.  No, I'm ticked at the fence manufacturing industry, and their obvious drive to compete with the cheapest design possible, and still call the product a rabbit fence. 

In theory, rabbit fencing has wire spacing that is close enough in the lowest strands, with slowly widening spaces toward the top, so that rabbits can't squeeze through. 

The problem is, that the widening is happening much too soon and too low, so that rabbits hop right through it. We've seen both little spring tykes and full grown rabbits get through ( not under), with devastating results to our beans, which they love.

Next possible solution(s) 
plant a "trap crop" outside the fence- say some soybeans for them to munch on. Would have to churn up some more of the deep pasture sod to do so.

Put one more layer of fencing along the upper half of the rabbit fence, where the problem seems to be.- more cost and hassle.

Snares,traps, other lethal schemes inside the fence- I'd rather not, as it is wasteful and one more thing to monitor and maintain.
For now, it looks like we are still going to get a decent crop of dry beans, so maybe we just live with it.

Anyone else find that rabbit fence doesn't serve the purpose?

Solar food dehydrating

Preserving food is essential for those who want to maximize home grown food year round. So far from our garden, we've canned a lot of stuff, put up a lot in the freezer, have dehydrated veggies in our Excalibur, and I even tried fermenting and made a batch of kraut.

To really reduce energy use in food preservation, solar is the way to go. There are a lot of designs to choose from, but I built our dehydrator based on the design developed by the homesteaders at
http://www.geopathfinder.com/Solar-Food-Drying.html

These homesteaders (Larissa and Bob) have been at it a long time, and the site has some other good stuff also.

I have enough materials to build a second one like that shown in the photos, but if we decide we need even more capacity, my plan would be to build the Appalachian State University design.

http://appropriatetec.appstate.edu/sites/appropriatetec.appstate.edu/files/HPImprovingSolarFoodDryers.pdf

Until we decide to ( or have to!)  really cut back on power use, we will still freeze and can plenty of food, but right now we are experimenting with dehydrating various things, with the general intent to minimize energy, maximize retained nutrition, and of course, process in ways that leaves the food with good taste and texture.

You can use either glass or plastic for the transparent trapping layer, I used double wall polycarbonate. The glass or plastic needs to be suitable for the temps, as well as possible hail.

These are the 24" square removable trays the food sets on. I used stainless steel screen, and cedar framing. The black painted aluminum absorbs heat, and reradiates it to the food, while the heated air is channeled by the corrugated metal to send the evaporating water up and away. Larissa and Bob's website goes in to more detail.

Larissa and Bob have built theirs as a permanent outdoor appliance, but I used carriage bolts and made my legs and bracing removable, for storage indoors. Right now, I'm setting at a little over 15 degrees from horizontal. If this is too steep and food slides, I will just whack the back legs and redo the braces.

I used hi temp black stove spray paint on the heat capture aluminum sheeting. We'll let this outgas for a couple days, then give it a go.