After years of watching, waiting, and—well, whittling, I felled a significant tree on our homestead.
The current wood lot, showing the broken stump and the partially trimmed upper log (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
We’d dubbed the tree “the fat wood tree” because it broke a long time ago. It fell against nearby trees, hanging up in their branches. Where the tree broke, sap oozed out to mend the break. The tree died, and it began to dry. The splintered break formed fat wood, excellent for starting fires.
Continue reading 'The Fat Wood Tree Finally Comes Down'»
After we incorporated homemade heat shielding into our water heater install (see An Alarming Debut) we turned our attention to another problem on the homestead: the wood stove in the cottage.
We’ve made fires in the cottage wood stove for years without thinking much about the stove’s proximity to the adjacent wall. I confess, we installed a new stove in place of an older one, matching the proximity to the wall, and didn’t worry much about the difference.
Before: We obviously had a problem. Note: holes in wall come from the toredo worm wood used as decorative paneling (Photo: Sarah A. Zeiger).
Continue reading 'Heat Shielding for the Cottage Wood Stove'»
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