Permaculture and Hoop houses

Permaculture & Hoop houses

I thought I'd try a 5-section bed with a permaculture variation... clean out bed, lay down 4-6 thick layer of newspaper, add a layer of compost about 3" thick and a layer of wood chips about 3" thick. Then plant the seeds in the traditional way—digging a little trench and place the seeds apart following their preferred seed spacing...

First, I cleaned out the bed getting rid of lots of weeds. One of the reasons I want to try permaculture is it looks like it handles weeds a lot better than exposed soil does...Where I live there is an abundance of Bermuda grass which survives about as well as cockroaches. However, I did learn something recently about weeds. My neighbor in California, a lovely woman, told me a long time ago that every thing has a positive reason for being even if we don't know what it is yet. I learned that weeds are the first line of defense for soil preservation. After soil has been cleared of whatever it was growing, the first thing that appears to keep the soil in place, rather than it blow away, are weeds. Learning that gave me a new appreciation for them. They have a very important job; without them our topsoil would blow away and then we couldn't grow anything!

Second, I spread out the newspaper over the bare soil to not only hold moisture from rain and the drip irrigation system, but also to block weeds from coming through.

Third, I dug compost from my compost bin and laid some on top of the newspapers to not only hold the paper down, but also to see how much of my own compost I had versus how much I needed to go buy. I needed 2 bags of compost. The big box store didn't have mushroom compost, which I've used and liked in the past. I ended up with cotton burr compost. I've read that it is nutrient dense, so I'm giving it a try.

The Fourth step, is to add a layer of mulch. In many of the permaculture videos they recommend getting tree mulch from tree service folks or your city. There is a city park near where I live and they happen to have lots and lots of free mulch. Just provide your own containers and vehicle. I get a couple of containers at a time.

In this freshly prepared 5-section bed I planted: Kale, Elephant Garlic, Onion, Red and Yukon Gold Potatoes, Swiss Chard, and New Zealand Spinach.

Happy with the planting results...I went out to survey my work. I noticed that something had already sprouted! I don't think I've ever seen a sprout this big emerge within 24 hours...

Looking around, though, I still have some beds that need attention and reworking for the fall, plus I still have a few things I want to plant: shallots, ginger, broccoli, and beets.

The first two permaculture beds and growing like crazy. Today we enjoyed some of the greens in a nice sandwich at lunchtime... I especially enjoy the beet greens in the cooler months.

Meanwhile, up in Michigan, Dan has been busy bending hoops and getting them installed to make a 20' x 85' large size hoop house, which are also known as high tunnels. He wants to try his hand at extended season growing in the colder climes. Today, he put up the perlins which connect the hoops together providing strength and sturdiness to the overall structure. Tomorrow it's side boards that can be used to hook wiggle wire onto; the wiggle wire will hold the plastic on the hoop house. He bought professional grade plastic that is made to last at least 4 years. The plastic will contain heat and prevent the cold winds from damaging the plants inside.

That's the job for this week. All the trips going up and down on a ladder are not easy on the legs, knees, and back. The more I plunge into serious gardening/farming, the more I have respect for our fore bearers and for farmers everywhere. 

Hey... let's throw in a harvest picture... because based on feedback, I know you love to look at a successful harvest and its inherent deliciousness. Danny and I have been starting to pick food from the fall crop lately. We've had a delicious sandwich using the greens, and a nice side salad for dinner tonight. Danny also picked some herbs to add to the macaroni dish he whipped up. You really can't get healthier food that this: no pesticides, absolutely fresh, organic heirloom seed stock, nutrient dense, and grown with love and care. What could be better?!

Stay tuned and Bon Appetit!

Roughing it in place-prepping for lights out

Roughing It Weekend--How self sufficient are we becoming?

A few years ago I decided that I needed to develop enough skills to be able to take care of myself and my family in case of an emergency. I began this journey in earnest—starting with growing my own food (vegetables and fruits), acquiring the supplies to become off the grid, and now implementing the learnings to put it all together.

In one book, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, by James Wesley, Rawles, founder of Survivalblog.com, it suggested that a good way to find out your strengths and weaknesses in terms of emergency preparedness is to pick a weekend where you unplug from the grid: no electricity, no running water, no gas. Go through your weekend and see what you can do, where you've prepared well, and what you still need to learn. That was our task: Holding a Roughing It Weekend where we lived without the grid amenities.

We decided since the Friday before was 12-21-12 (End of the Mayan calendar) and we had festive activities to go to for that evening, we'd start our roughing it weekend Saturday after we had consultation to discuss the ground rules. Luckily for my son and I, my fiance, Dan, came to help me with another project so he is here to help us learn how to use the equipment. In consultation, we decided on the following:

• We would turn the heater down (60 degrees Fahrenheit) so the pipes under my house wouldn't freeze and create a problem. 
• We wouldn't actually turn OFF the electricity; we just wouldn't use it.
• We would allow one last errand running effort to gather the last supplies we needed before starting the weekend.
• We would conclude the weekend at sunset, Sunday evening, to allow for preparing for Monday's activities.
• We would fill our bathtubs with water to provide extra water for chores.

To prepare, I filled 5 gallon buckets with some water for the two bathrooms, adding 2.5 pH water as the disinfectant for washing hands. You can also add bleach to the water to purify it.

In the kitchen, I filled two 3.5 gallon buckets. One with dishwashing soap and 2.5 pH water, and one with only 2.5 pH water.

One was designated as the washing bucket (the one with the dish soap) and the other as the rinsing bucket. Each labeled to avoid confusion.

I also had stowed a dozen gallons of drinking/cooking water; for us, we use Kangen water.

I have a portable loo with a toilet seat on a 5 gallon bucket and a bucket of sawdust to cover anything, as needed. Toilet paper is nearby, and an old container is used to transfer sawdust to cover the contents.

I had purchased paper plates for the weekend to make the kitchen tasks easier. When Danny and I got back from our errands, it was past lunchtime so that was the first thing to get cracking on. I had some croissants defrosted, so we agreed to one cheese sandwich and two canned salmon salad sandwiches with mayonnaise, mustard, and fresh garden greens.

Sandwiches before the cheese and the salmon salad were added. Yum! That wasn't so bad. Glad I had bought the croissants the weekend before and had them stowed for this weekend.

Water

Water becomes very important immediately when learning to live off the grid or fend for yourself. Being able to take dirty water and make it drinkable is a good skill to have. Awhile back I watched a DIY (do it yourself) video on water filtration and had purchased a 5 gallon bucket, a galvanized metal bucket, rocks, sand, filtering charcoal, and mesh cloth. Dan drilled holes in the bottom of the galvanized bucket the day before to prepare. Then he placed 1 layer of mesh cloth in the very bottom, layered 2-3 inches of rock, 2-3 inches of sand, another mesh cloth, all the charcoal (one milk carton-sized container), and a top layer of mesh cloth. 

The galvanized filtration bucket was then placed into the 5 gallon bucket. In another 5 gallon bucket Danny gathered dirty water.

Taking that he poured it into the water filtration system in the galvanized bucket.

We let it filter through the system. Remembering when I used to have to prepare my Britta kitchen water filter, I remember having to soak it for 5 minutes and then rinse it 'til all the black charcoal residue washed away. After passing the water through the system a few times, we decided we have to rinse this charcoal through several times as well.

After about 5 passes through the filter, it still looked dirty enough that we didn't want to drink it, so Dan pulled out his PUR water filter.

You can put one plastic tube into the dirty water source and put the output device into/onto a container into which you want the purified water to flow.

The PUR water filter has a output device for not as large as a wide-mouth jar. I found this narrow mouth tomato sauce jar in my jar collection, which worked just fine. You can also use any other sized opening of a container with the other output device that hooks over the lip of it.

The 'hook' unit has two parts: a little part goes into the hook component.

Once you have your preferred distribution method selected, then place the other plastic tube into the water source and pump.

The output is astonishing...

Wow... look at that. It looks clean, but is it really? Who is brave enough to try it?

OK, OK, I did. Then we all did. We agreed that it tasted a bit plastic-y because the PUR unit hadn't been used in a long time. We determined that if it was boiled beforehand that would have cleaned out the plastic taste. Something to keep in mind when you are getting your first fire going, you can always clean the tubes and the output devices by plunking them into some boiling water. Other than the taste though, the water was clean.

Another option, if you are still unsure, is to add 8 drops of bleach to a gallon of water.

Water Summary

Here I've covered three ways to purify water:

• Homemade water filtration with a galvanized bucket inside a 5 gallon bucket with rocks, sand, charcoal and mesh fabric pieces to hold the elements in place.
• PUR water filtration. This tool can be used in streams, ponds, and any water source. Very good and reliable tool to have on hand.
• Beach to decontaminate the water. You could take dirty water, run it through even a bandana to get the grit out, and add only bleach (4 drops for a 1/2 gallon to sanitize the water and let it set for 20 minutes to offgas the chlorine and kill the bacteria) to prepare it for drinking.

DIY Clothes Washer

Thinking through the household tasks, I thought we should have a way to wash our clothes without an electric washing machine. We came up with the following necessary items to make one:

• 1 wood handled plunger
• 1 bathtub drain stopper
• 1 5 gallon bucket with lid
• 1 drill

With the supplies in hand, Dan talked Daniel through the steps of constructing a handmade clothes washer. Fortunately, Daniel had previously learned how to use a drill when he and Dan put the steel roof on my house, so no drill remediation was needed. (They did this outside, so somehow the use of electricity from the outside didn't come up for discussion. I'd recommend doing this before the electricity goes out.)

Dan had marked the plastic plunger base with dots where Danny was to drill. Somehow, Danny thought he was to drill between the dots, so this is what we came out with... : )

Notice the drain stopper in the background... Dan had previously cut a hole the size of the plunger handle into the drain stopper. He used a utility knife to do this. He also cut a hole in the lid of the 5 gallon bucket the same size. Then Danny took to drilling the plunger.

Assembly is easy: Place the plunger with holes into the 5 gallon bucket. Put the lid with the hole for the plunger handle over the plunger; then put the drain stopper over the lid. Into the bucket you can place the dirty clothes, some soap of your choosing (or 11.5 pH water), and the lid with the stopper. Use the plunger as the agitator to move the cleansing water through the clothes. 

You can dump the gray water onto your garden or use for flushing the toilet, then add clean water to rinse. Wring the wet clothes out by hand and hang on a clothes line with clothes pins to dry. You can even set up an indoor clothes line, if you don't want to draw attention to yourself by stringing the clothes line across one side of a room to the other using hooks in the walls. The clothes line can easily be taken down when you want to use the room for other purposes. When the clothes are dry, remove from the clothes line. Fold the clothes, and wear as needed.

Food/Meal Preparation and Cooking

By then the afternoon was ticking away and I thought I best figure out what kind of one-pot meal we'd have for dinner. Not sure how long it would take to cook, I got it ready early. Plus, at this time of year, we learned that it's best to do tasks when there is still sunlight to make it easier. 

In my largest pot, I put a bit of olive oil, chopped onion, shallots, garlic, and celery. Then I washed and sliced red potatoes, carrots. I opened a can of pink beans with my hand crank can opener. Sprinkled ground sage and ground jalepeno pepper onto the mix with salt and pepper too. Added some 9.5 pH water, which speeds cooking and enhances flavors. Put the lid on 'til we were ready to start the MSR Dragonfly burner.

The MSR Dragonfly burner was new and since I had never assembled or used it before, I very much appreciated having Dan who is experienced with these things to guide me through the steps. We watched a few videos on YouTube beforehand as well to get ready.

The cookstove had to be opened up and set on the aluminum round protective barrier that it comes with. The fuel tank needed to be filled. We used Coleman propane, which you can buy by the gallon. Then the two parts at the end of the tube need to be inserted into the fuel tank and secured. Once the gas is turned on on the tank and the stove, you can use a long handled fire starter to ignite the fuel. It'll burn high 6-8" flame for a few minutes and then it'll start hissing. When it starts to hiss, it is ready to have the fuel adjusted (up or down) so the blue flame (like a jet) can be used to cook the food. Since I was doing all of this for the first time, I was so engrossed in learning the steps that I didn't take any photos of this part. Maybe I did better when Danny was learning the next day... Anyway, once the flame was going we set the coffee pot on the burner to start making coffee which we'd have to sip on while the stew was cooking. We did all of this outside and temperatures were brisk. Keeping warm became another issue, which I'll cover in a later section on clothing.

I also purchased a Sterno burner (because that's what I remember from when my brothers were Boy Scouts when I was a kid) and it didn't look too complicated. Set up Sterno burner, open Sterno can, light it, and place on the sterno holder rack below the burner rack. Place pot on top. 

I discovered that the sterno burner is really good for heating up stuff, but not quite hot enough for cooking real meals. So it became the holding place to keep things warm. Like once the coffee was perked, we moved it to the sterno burner to keep it warm and put the stew on the MSR Dragonfly burner to cook. 

The stew turned out great. We ate outside on the picnic table and had wintertime S'mores for dessert. Winter S'mores consist of graham crackers, section of chocolate bar, sliced banana, and a graham cracker on top. I placed them on aluminum foil and warmed them on the sterno burner so the chocolate could melt a bit and become soft. I found out that graham cracker when heated sticks to the aluminum, so next time I'd spray it with some cooking oil first. It was yummy though.

As you can see in the photos that it is dark outside and cold is setting in. We also had a Coleman lantern that had never been used, so we had to prepare the mantles by lighting them and then turn on the fuel and ignight it. We decided to only use it outside because lanterns emit carbon monoxide and we didn't want to risk anything, even with having our house windows open a couple of inches at the bottom for ventilation. 

Satisfied we headed indoors. Inside we used candles and not too many of them. The fewer you have lit, the less you have to keep track of in case of emergency. We gathered in the living room for additional reading/conversation time. I had purchased some flashlights that strap on one's head, so we were able to read for awhile. But it didn't take long before we each went to our individual sleeping spots. Early to bed, early to rise comes to mind.

We also noticed how quiet it was in the house when there were no appliances running. Stone quiet.

The next day was very brisk outside. Around 19 degrees Farenheit. The idea of having to get up, get dressed and go out into the cold to start the burner to heat the coffee really wasn't too attractive. Fortunately, Dan is tough and got the coffee made before I knew it.

When I went outside, he had some tinfoil panels, which we had previously used for a solar baking experiment last year, blocking the N-NW wind. There's also the protective shield that goes around the MSR Dragonfly burner to protect the flame from the wind. Interestingly, the coffee left over from the night before was stored at room temperature and when brought outside into the cold started steaming without ever reaching the cook top!

Clothing and Layers

I was still learning about layering when he brought hot coffee into the house. I'm glad and thankful that he doesn't mind doing these tasks. I had bought some long underwear for Danny and me the day before, so we each decided today was the day to break them out. Under my jeans and sweatshirt they went. I had a neck scarf on, headband, and gloves in addition to an outer jacket, but when I went outside I was still cold. Dan told me to get my polypropylene jacket on. Replace the sweatshirt with a 100% wool sweater. Swap out my knit gloves for the survival gloves I have. I also had my thick wool socks on my feet. With those modifications, I was much warmer and could function outside. Daniel made similar discoveries and tweaked his clothing layers as well so he could manage in the cold.

More Cooking

The next day we decided to heat up the leftover stew so we wouldn't have to deal with storage or waste. It was already cooked so it wouldn't take as long and we could just crack some eggs on top once it was boiling for some poached eggs.

The stew with the poached eggs was yummy. We elected to eat indoors since the wind was a bit much to deal with.

Preparing Food became very important. Since I don't have experience doing this stuff and we only had one real burner for cooking, I didn't know how long it would take to make various dishes. Right after breakfast we discussed how we could cobble together an makeshift oven because I had a cake I wanted to bake. Dan suggested we take the largest pot and after washing it, place a layer of stones on the bottom of it. Then mix up the cake and pour it into the smaller sized pan and place that inside the larger one. The stones will act as a buffer and distribute the heat around the smaller pan so it's like an oven. I put the lid on the smaller pan and we had to put tinfoil over the larger one since it's lid didn't fit securely with the smaller pan's lid on.

The kind of cake I made was using a Chocolate Cake Mix, I can cherry pie filling, and 6 oz. gingerale. I mixed them altogether and put it into the smaller pan. The directions on the box said the cake would take 35 minutes. We checked it then, then added 10 more minutes, and then 15 more minutes for a total of 60 minutes (1 hour) before it was done enough. We didn't want the cake to burn or the bottom to become too crusty so we took it out when it was still deliciously moist.

 

Unveiled... what do you think?

The Chocolate Cherry Camping Cake looked so good to us, we really didn't want to wait to eat it after dinner. Danny quickly got instructed on lighting and using the MSR Dragonfly so he could whip together a quick lunch for us. Then we decided to have some of the lovely looking cake for dessert after lunch.

Dan and I had Bocaburger sandwiches and Danny ate Canadian bacon sandwiches. Then we enjoyed the cake... : )

Since our "oven" idea worked so well with the cake, Dan thought we should try using the same 'oven' and make baked potatoes. I washed 6 potatoes, poked holes in them with a fork on both sides, and wrapped them in tinfoil. We place that into the large pot with the stones on the bottom. That went on the burner at 1:00 and it took about 3 hours for the potatoes to be baked. We decided that wasn't the most efficient use of fuel or time, but since they were baked we'd warm up some beans with BBQ sauce on them and have that for dinner. We ate at 4:30 p.m. so we'd still have light and not have to light candles.

Cutting the baked potatoes in half, adding a pat of butter and a scoop of the BBQ beans made for a very tasty dinner that didn't require too much work. 

Summary

• We ended up consuming 3 gallons of water for 3 people over the day and a half for cooking, drinking, beverages. 
• We used about 1/4 of the fuel for all the meals we cooked and determined we could probably make about one week's worth of meals if we cooked judiciously.
• We decided that we really liked modern amenities and that it takes a lot of energy to think everything through when learning how to do this for the first time.

Then we waited for sunset so we could turn on our lights and conclude our Roughing It Weekend. : )

It's a Dream of Farming, living, and enjoying a life lived

A Dream of Farming, Living, and Enjoying a Life Lived

This is a hoophouse we constructed over several weeks. It started in May of 2012 as a 35ft long by 20 foot wide structure. Now the length is 85 or so feet. It has 4ft sidewalls and the top has three purlins. The far end in this shot is a treated wood frame with all the plastic captured between the 5/4 by 6 pieces of wood.

Starting at the far end you can see a sliding 4x3 foot window. It was taken out from behind where this picture was shot and moved to the end. In the winter it remains closed. Come the first of Feb or so this will have to be opened on the more sunny days as the temp inside could easily reach into the 90’s F.

The brush under the window is actually last fall’s tomato plants gone by. They gave good fruit, resisted disease and bugs, and when they finally got hit by the cold (in late Oct) they showed their final strength by exhibiting a massive root ball. I am planning to build an overhead frame of some sort to support the bearing part of the plant in the coming year.

At the middle right is the small child wading pools that I got for half price at the end of the summer. I believe there are five or maybe six.  I will use these in an aquaculture based system this year. Along with these pools I have some PVC eave troughs that will be mounted on the sidewall and then the pool water, holding fish, will be pumped up to the top of the eave and allowed to gravity feed back down through some plants and thus be filtered for the fish to use. 

The nutrients the fish put into the water will grow some wonderful plants, the return water will be clean enough to support the fish until it gets circulated again.

The clump of plants on the right hand side is a small type of broccoli. It is going to seed yet and theses seeds will be used to start another patch in the spring. They got hit a bit at the end of the season with a small mite sized insect and the last of the lady bugs seemed to get them under control. I would guess this susceptibility to being buggy is from the pH of the soil being too high.

The soil test we got last spring from the state Extension Service showed a level of about 7. This might be alright for humans and such but my veggies like it down around 6 or 6.5. Sulfur added to the soil will lower the 7 down a point or so. Follow the directions as to how much to apply per 1000 sq. ft. and it will be perfect. 

This picture is looking from the SSW and shows the woodwall, the small pile of woodchips, the sides for turning the little trailer into a small dump wagon, and the pallets farthest up is a three stall compost pile and on the far end of that my hoopbending table.

By the way-the satellite dish you see was put in when I first started to develop this place. It was about a quarter mile from this point to the road and we couldn’t get phone service for six months. I think at that time a good internet connection was like 56k download. So what I did was to move an old RV that I had onto the property.

Next I installed a satellite service, Hughes or something, and ran everything off my generator. The next order of business was to plants a small garden to test the soil. It was right under where the hh is now. We also bought a few hundred trees and put them in the same area and planted them out when time was available.

Plans were chosen for building the new house and I then built the little barn the same size as the house was to be. This gave one of the bosses in my life an opportunity to better visualize the inside spaces we would be working with in the main house. If I remember the dimensions it was about 32x36 or so. By leaving the ceiling off the inside of the barn, the inside of the house could be imagined as it would have a complete cathedral ceiling.

One day I was going into town and saw a crew chopping down some trees by the ditch up north. It was to run lines and equipment for a new high voltage power line through the county. We have over a hundred of the wind turbines on this side of the county now and we needed more distribution power-in and out. Well the loop is close but not that close and when I noticed they had shredded up a truck full of branches and leaves I stopped to inquire.  I wondered where they had to transport their cargo to. They said down the road about 35 miles to their shop.  I told them I would very much appreciate it if they could dump it at my house, which was only ¾ of a mile down the road. Well, he said he would check with his boss and let me know.

He drove into the lane a few hours later. The smile on my face was truly ear to ear! He wanted to know where to dump the load and not get tangled in the overhead power lines. We got it as close as we could to the hoophouse. The person next to the pile is my hired hand-or as I like to call her, Mom. She is one of the bosses in my life. The other one is currently finishing a stretch in Kansas, raising the last son of her remarkable family.

The distance and time of development are always difficult. However, many sacrifices are made no matter when you strike out to find your true path in life and we are working both places for our personal growth and development.

Many of the proceeding articles on this blog were written, pictured, and edited by my Kansas boss. She has talents in many areas of living; Mothering, growing, writing, photographing, nurturing and expressing a wonderful, spiritual nature that beams joy and peace.

Here you can see the hoops being erected. The far end is the north end of the hoophouse. It is opposite the windowed/wood framed end you see in the first picture.  The hoophouse sets tight to the little barn and I removed the window on the left and put a full 4x8 foot door as passage from one to the other.

The door is plenty big to transfer equipment, amendments, tools and pallets to the hoophouse. I also keep the heat in the hh and the cold out of the barn. Above the new door will be the whole house fan for controlling the temps during spring, summer and fall.

When I plowed in the spring of 2012 I made sure the ground was turned up all around the hh. This area will be planted in the spring with what I am calling outside crops; Cukes, squash, punkins, cabbage, asparagus, and a grand variety of fresh, good tasting fruits and veggies. Many of these are being planted out because of the room they require. I am going to try to plant according to pounds produced per 100 square feet.

We hope to continue this blog during the year. It should provide some guidance, hope, encouragement and laughter to all who care to read it.

Thanks to all my bosses and thanks also to all the readers of this blog.

Be well; peace…dan

Machines only a woman can love...

Outward Bound 101...or how to get a handle on a treed lot

Every day is a new adventure on the land. Buying land with no amenities gives us all an opportunity to learn through each stage of the process. First order of business—surveying the land. If we know where the four corners of the property are, then we can begin to figure out where the various buildings go.

It was a cold, rainy day, but the surveyors came out and figured out the four corners...

Dan rented a brush hog to clear out some of the brush and start making a pathway where we could begin to work. 

After that I was introduced to a skid steer made by Bobcat. They make a small job of getting rid of smaller sized trees.

Before I knew it, I was getting skid steer driving lessons: pedals to manage the bucket, handles to push and pull for forward and backward, how to turn it—handles in opposite directions, and when in doubt you can always turn the key off!

So far so good! My son and his girlfriend came over last weekend and were super excited about learning to drive it, so off we went for nighttime skid steer lessons. Erin was a champ and was driving up a tree learning to fell it with the Bobcat. David went next and snagged his very own tree himself too! That was a fun evening. It made us all re-evaluate what we're currently doing for a living!

Dan picked up a couple of culverts to help with drainage at the place where we are making a driveway entrance.

We ordered a load of gravelly sand to lay over the culverts to start to make a driveway and allow for drainage in the little ditch that is under what will be the driveway.

Seems pretty loose and squishy. I think we should get something to pack it down with. I'm thinking it looks too loose and we could easily get stuck... What if we bought some plywood and placed it on top of the sand for a while while we drive on it to pack it down...

Moving the RV there... well, let's just say we're still working on that! Those boards might have been a good idea...

Onto selective felling of trees. We like that there are trees, but to put up the work structures some of the trees will need to be felled to make room for the buildings. Dan knows what he's doing when it comes to cutting down trees, but how about the rest of us?!

When I rented the chain saw with the skid steer, it was $55 a day. It wouldn't take too many days of renting one to cover the cost of buying one. Off to the local farm supply store we go. It's getting to be my new best friend. After doing some comparison shopping at the local big box store, we learned the farm supply store is competitively priced on this item. We ended up with the 455 series chainsaw by Husquavarna. It's supposed to be a better brand than some of the others and we didn't want an 'e-series' one—short for economy (read cheap). We have a lot of trees to be felled and cut; we need a machine that will do the job.

Danny had the task of reading the Getting Started Instructions out loud, while Dan got it started for the first time, putting in fuel and oil and then pumping the bulb a number of times to purge the air out of the engine. He had to pull the starter rope quite a few times before the engine engaged, but we met with success.

Ready for the first lesson... basic chain saw cutting... Don't sway the chainsaw back and forth; let the saw cut through the tree—like cutting soft butter—it can do it easily.

Then log cutting... Make each log only about 12-14" long so it'll fit into a fireplace or fire pit easily.

Now it's my turn to practice cutting logs...

Ok, I've got it... Danny.... your turn to learn how to cut logs...

Looks like he'll be able to cut logs from now on...

Now that we each know how to cut logs, let's have a real lesson in felling trees! I learned that first you figure out which direction the tree grows naturally—that's the direction that it will want to fall. If the top of the tree is reaching to the east, then you'll need to cut a wedge, or a notch, into the east side of the tree. I started with a horizontal cut about a third of the way into the tree. 

Then cut straight down to the notch making a notch. The bigger the notch, the easier it is to turn the tree the direction you want for felling. Here's a close up of Danny making his front notch...

Once the front notch is cut, then make a horizontal cut on the back side of the tree at least 1 inch above the bottom cut of the front notch. 

Be very aware at this stage of the tree felling process because if you need to retreat quickly go about 45 degrees back from the direction of the fall—not directly back and certainly not in the front of the tree. This mistake could cost you your life. Here's where you truly need to be careful because what you are doing is certainly taking risk!

With the tree down, the next thing is to cut the small branches from the trunk... of course, Dan made it look more like cutting butter again!

Then he started cutting logs...

We're back to full circle now because we already had the logging lesson...

Oh, time to take Danny to his piano lesson. I'll be back afterwards. Be careful Dan...

Here's a snap of the twig pile and the wood pile Danny and I worked on while Dan was cutting and logging in another area of the woods.

When I got back we had some strategic product placement... That Husquvarna gets the job done!

Look at the size of that tree...!

Today, we decided it was a good day to construct a fire pit/cook stove. We gathered 14 blocks and 6 of the little flat ones... They cost about $18.00 at the big box store, but I had 8 from home. Purchasing 6 of each type.

We placed the six flat ones three wide and two deep encasing them with six blocks and then stacking up from there...

Last week at the farm supply store we purchased a little rack ($12) to use on the cookstove. I placed it on top of what we had so far and with a few minor tweaks, we were good to go. For $30 we have a fire pit/cook stove that can work well for a long time to come. Living frugally gets the job done and can be fun!

Next up, let's gather some dead wood and get something easy to start the fire with. The box for the chain saw could be used as starter fuel and then we'll see if we can get the wood to light. I happen to have some lighters in my car... Having lighters was no accident. Stocking up on lighters when you're making fires frequently seems like a pretty logical thing to do.

I retrieved a newspaper from the car too. It helped get the fire started because it's easier than cardboard. Note to self: Keep some newspaper in the car for starting fires.

When getting a fire started, it's one thing to get the kindling to start... but will the big logs catch fire is the real question.

With the big log lit, it's time to bring in some campfire furniture...

In high school, that would have been a fellow football player he was carrying. With a bit of seasoning, he's directed that strength to carry wood blocks...

With a couple of these in place, we sat by the fire and watched the birds... we saw robins, bluebirds, cardinals, a meadowlark, sparrows, and geese. It was comforting to see and hear so many birds flying and flitting and singing their songs. At my house, I don't see so many birds. It concerns me because I wonder how many are left and how many have died off because of the toxins killing off so many species.

At the end of the day, it's good to practice fire safety and put out the fire. We happened to have a jug of water nearby... off when the fire!

We stacked a few more logs on the pile... not bad for a first effort... there's enough wood stacked to get us by for six months...

Meanwhile back at home this morning... inside the hoop house the temperature was 51 degrees and the veggies and greens where growing strong...

I picked three grocery bags full of greens and veggies this morning...

Check out these organic multi-colored carrots... growing away when most days hover around freezing...

Check out the harvest... kale, spinach, cilantro, carrots, onions, lettuce, swiss chard, arugula...

I made a fine lunch of fresh salad with a balsamic vinegrette dressing with pinto bean hummus, deviled eggs, tortilla chips, and sweet and sour pickles from the summer.

Bon appetit! at Chez Kansas... : )