Cooking systems

I was talking with another outdoor enthusiast about cooking systems, specifically outdoor dutch oven cooking using charcoal briquettes. He brought the multi-fuel pyromid cooking system to my attention. It's pretty efficient, and has add-ons for baking. The whole unit folds down into a compact package. The literature proposes it as a possible solution to some of the fuel shortages (read: deforestation) in rural Africa.

A couple days later, I was at the African village display at the local zoo and noticed the design similarites between the Pyromid and the Kenyan Clay Jiko (KCJ), an effort to get folks away from their highly inefficient and unhealthy traditional cooking fires.

Some reading about the KCJ revealed another African design: the Vesto. It's a stove based on a five gallon paint can. It's built in South Africa and costs considerably less than the Pyromid, although it is more bulky. It would certainly be useful for camping and emergency use. I'm still looking for a source in the U.S.

Movie: The Gleaners and I

I just saw The Gleaners and I, directed by Agnès Varda. C'est fantastique!

Agnès exposes what good dumpster divers have known for some time; the amount of waste in Western society is astounding. Her French subjects, ranging from Gypsies to street kids to volunteer teachers to gourmet chefs, realize the untapped bounty in leftover produce, from both the field and the market.

We would all do well to take a lesson from Ms. Varda's subjects. If you're averse to gleaning or dumpstering, you should at least pay attention to efficiently using and re-using what you have.

Communications Academy 2005

I went to the Communications Academy a couple years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is two days of seminars on a variety of radio communications topics. I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in emergency communications attend. It's extremely interesting and free! 2005 session is April 2-3 in Shoreline, Washington.

Have a look at past offerings to get an idea of what's in store. (2004, 2003, 2002)

Casting Party

My friend Dan had a casting party last week. You may be thinking "thespians," but no.

This was a molten metal social event. Dan turned his backyard into a foundary workers dream. There were a dozen people there and at least 2 projects going at any one time. Dan was melting aluminum in the foundary while another fellow fired his lost-wax mold for a small totem.

The keystone for the occasion was Mike Porter's backyard furnace. The furnace or forge is made from an old propane tank. Ingenious. These furnaces get hot. As I mentioned, Dan was melting aluminum, and the totem cast was later filled with molten brass. Mike was there, signing copies of his book, "Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces & Kilns," which details the making of both the furnace, and most importantly, the burner, which fires the furnace.

The greatest thing about these furnaces are their versatility. Depending on how you build it, the foundary furnace can be easily flipped on its side and used as a blacksmith's forge. Very cool and very portable.

Chicken Tractors

Check this out: I have been designing a chicken tractor - drawings & descriptions in my notebook - that allows me to move chickens around the yard. It keeps down weeds & bugs & distributes fertilizer while keeping the chickens secure & free-range happy. Imagine my surprise, when visiting the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, in finding a luxury chicken tractor! This coop has everything: a second story with nesting boxes & roosts and a pull-down ladder for the chickens to descend to ground level. This thing is cool. www.backyardfarming.com calls it their Boughton Range.

Living the Good Life

BUILDING

I'm reading a great book about living the good life. It's called... surprise! Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing. There is a whole chapter about building with stone, using forms similar to concrete forms. Now I'm not the most handy man around. My son keeps mentioning how we start a project, then later start another project, and rarely finish one. So, although I may never try these stone building techniques, I do think it's rather intriguing and a very cost effective method of homestead building.

It got me to looking at the different buildings I pass on my walk to work. Many of the buildings are brick, some undergoing renovation after the earthquake of 2001. Even among the brick buildings there are many different ways to build, including vastly different brick sizes. There are also many buildings and other structures (stairs, pedestrian bridges, stadiums) which use a lot of concrete or mixed concrete and brick. All very well engineered and well thought out it seems. There are certainly a wide variety of building styles in downtown Seattle, and I particularly like looking at the older buildings.

Speaking of concrete, Metro Transit is working on a bus shelter near my home. From the pace of it, they are approaching the speed at which my son says I complete projects. They had dug a hole and put in forms to pour a pad. There were minor changes over the course of two weeks to the forms. Next thing I knew, they had expanded the hole and forms to nearly double the size of the pad. I don't firmly understand concrete construction, but the form looked very elaborate for a simple bus shelter pad. At least a week later, we had a pad to stand on. It has now been almost two weeks with a bare pad. I don't see any methods to attach and shelter supports; I suppose they'll just drill right into it. I just hope it's done before the summer is over.

I need a dog

I've been thinking about this for a long time. What is the perfect dog for a homestead? A dog should be a great companion, handle livestock, and defend against interlopers. On the security front, a dog or pair of dogs should be able to handle other dogs & coyotes, four legged garden pests (deer) and unfriendly two-legs who wander by. A good dog should keep the honest neigbor honest & the suspicious-looking visitor fearful. After much thought, my choice is... the Blue Heeler. It has a long history as a livestock dog. Its outback lineage, with Dingo ancestry, make it a tough customer on the security and basic survival fronts.