The Old Folks Home

[Myrth]

My new solar oven is sitting out in the blazing heat, preheating. This is my first time cooking with it. The plan is to bake sourdough and some fish filets in it for dinner. I LOVE baking. I LOVE my sourdough. But it heats up the kitchen terribly to bake, and really puts a strain on the A/C. So, we got a solar oven. I am *really* hoping it does OK on the bread. Ideally I would have an outdoor wood fired oven, but that is possibly something for another year. I am simply thrilled to have an outdoor oven. And this one does not create any fire hazards.

 

[ronott1]

My new solar oven is sitting out in the blazing heat, preheating. This is my first time cooking with it. The plan is to bake sourdough and some fish filets in it for dinner. I LOVE baking. I LOVE my sourdough. But it heats up the kitchen terribly to bake, and really puts a strain on the A/C. So, we got a solar oven. I am *really* hoping it does OK on the bread. Ideally I would have an outdoor wood fired oven, but that is possibly something for another year. I am simply thrilled to have an outdoor oven. And this one does not create any fire hazards.

I have been baking bread in the pellet BBQ. Today is not very hot yet though.

 

[pennyJo1960]

When the guys dismantled the old prowler they bought for 50 we saved the propane stove and oven combo small rv style but big enough I can cook on it and bake but so far has not gotten that warm here

 

[ronott1]

Sourdough olive loaf is ready!

 

[pennyJo1960]

look awful good lots of warm butter please

 

[perchie.girl]

I think I'm up to a cord now, need 3 more. Lots less work (for me) when Al dropped it off in front of the little barn!

A question for all you wood harvesters: at what diameter do you just not bother? Seems like everything needs to be split or it doesn't dry. I've had 3" stuff from Al that was at least a year from being cut and it would still hiss water out. But those small pieces take about as long to cut to length and split as larger stuff, but yield lots less wood to burn.

what ever you decide as far as splitting Here is a handy tool to help.....

deb

 

[MrsMistyReal]

No we were around Lisbon the whole time. I would go back in a minute, it was fabulous.

Awesome it is very breath taking from what I've heard & the pics I've seen

 

[MrsMistyReal]

Sourdough olive loaf is ready!

View attachment 1433327

Looks very yummy

 

[microchick]

Yeah @bruceha2000 we thought about getting one of those hooks to help with the trees we harvest. We try to leave the big old growths alone and opt for the hickories that are a foot or so diameter. When mother nature drops an old growth for us we put it to good use. The biggest one we tackled was a huge split fork oak that a storm cleaved in half one spring. One half of the tree stayed upright but the downed half was three feet across if it was an inch. We managed to harvest 80% of that section. The next year, the other half fell and we harvested 100%.

What saves us having to use hooks on our logs is the fact that our land is so hilly all we have to do is let gravity do the work for us. Place a round as a stop and give the log in question a push, easy peasy.

Our Mahindra 35 horse tractor with a 6 foot bucket is able to handle 8 x3 foot lengths of trees without any trouble and will pull them up hills with ease. Don't know what we would do without it. DH estimates that an 8X3 length of hickory weighs approximately 3200 pounds.

Makes you appreciate what the settlers did by hand and with a team of horses when they moved west and started clearing timber for homes and farms.

 

[bruceha2000]

what ever you decide as far as splitting Here is a handy tool to help.....

There is a reason I have a splitter My hands can't take the shock of splitting with a maul. Might have to get a more serious splitter if I'm going to split 4 cords a year. The electric is pretty slow which was OK for the approximately 1run I would have to re-split because it was too big for the stove side door.

Gravity may help roll the tree if it is parallel to the fall line, not so much when the tree falls straight down the fall line (in the case of that one, as desired, quelle surprise it dropped where I wanted it to!). I still want your tractor

Today's problem is a tree that hung up in a ton of dead branches of a pine. I had to cut it ~3' above the ground owing to the other trunks that were so close together. Tree starts to drop, top half hangs up and the base fell into the ground about 3' from the trunk. Tree leaning at ~45°. I think I need to get my 2 ton come-along out and chain it to the bottom of the felled tree and a sturdy one in line with where the tree should fall. MAYBE if I can get it more horizontal the top will fall??