Oh I forgot, when I was young in Florida, we used to eat blue heron s. They are amazing meat. Don’t do it now cause there aren’t enough of them any more. Need to let them recover . Much better than turkey.
2 Likes
we’ve been making charcoal every time we get a load of wood to sort. About 2 load s a week. Not quite that often. When we come across the paper work we throw it in too. Jakob pulled this out today when we were bagging it. It’s a stack of papers that charred whole. We fill 5 barrels and get 1.75 barrels of engine grade char if we don’t forget about it like I did today. Then we only got .25 barrel s. 
3 Likes
Jakob posted about other projects we’ve been getting done. So I won’t repeat.
Here’s a nother load of wood today.
it produced almost 3 ibc tanks of chunks. 5 barrels of wood for char, and a1/2 dump load of firewood for my grandpa. we also built a pastor fence around 5 acres Thursday and half of Friday.
Finally got the mechanic shop set up. With a lift. We built a drain tank system for waste oil
s. and installed this green air tank in the new shop for a volume tank. Last week I had a bucket truck in the shop so Jesse and I tested it by installing a steel air pipe on taut cable from peak to peak of the two buildings. Now we have air in both building s. We got the tank from a scrap job at a shopping mall in Atlanta.
8 Likes
That was a pasture fence. Not one for pastors.
we also had three of these roll around clothing racks. Turned this one into an oil drain pan. Intending to make another one for antifreeze.
3 Likes
I think so, but as I recall it had a shorter tail.
2 Likes
Ha! Into WiFi range again. Hospital this time versus the local Urgency Clinic. Wife’s kidney stones have kicked back up. Stress. As I’d said we have a 2000-plus paper books home library. 400-plus DVD&VHS adult library. Added in anothet 100 in childerns vidoes plus all of thier books
So no needs for internet downstream infotainments
Got 800 of 1000 feet new fencing done. Got early Spring peas and spiniches mudded in. One quarter of the big garden hand spade turned over incorporating the chicken litter. The two little girls have the one acre fenced yard to rattle aroumd in. Life is good when you are truely Rural. S.U.
12 Likes
Hey Steve, if you’re going to work her like that, you have to give her more water, or she’ll get kidney stones.
2 Likes
Ha! Ha! It is me 67, the girl’s mother 39 doing the grunt sweating works. My wife the home health educator nurse ordered State shut down watching her owned CNA dream school go bankrupt. No face to face in home visits allowed to her now either. Wound care and catheters clients will infect and go setic. Sad. Sad. Local here the small business owners offing themselves exceeds the covid deaths so far. S.U.
1 Like
Hey guys do not leave me hanging here as the DebbieDowner! Life is good in the here&now. Good not raining day predicted here soon. Then I can finish my last 200 feet of new perimeter fencing to keep in my rascal escapist dog out of trouble. And still got heating wood inthe shed. Meat and fruits in the freezers. Still got easy-use grid power and water. Still got books needing read. S.U
11 Likes
Lot’s of folks seem busy I guess Steve . I have been wondering where everyone is also.
1 Like
Well, here the same. Stay home all together, cozy around the fire place.
In the morning start the gasifier boiler. Good exercise for a real gasifier. Infrastructure is almost ready, some heatexchanger has to be replaced by a threewayvalve to gain a few degrees and the buffer can be used to a lower degree.
Next step is to connect a small 1 hp generator/chp and try woodgas instead of diesel, next next step will be a 30 hp Lister. Finally after some five years or more.
So, I don’t complain either. No stress about school in the morning with the kids, all the family together all day, as long as we stay healthy very happy times.
8 Likes
Unfortunately the fireplace takes logs three feet 10 inch diam and the hotwater boiler is happiest with small pieces ,1 foot, from old pallets. It should be the other way around. We have a lot of wood lying on our small land piece, but hotwater gasifier doesn’t like it.
If Corona stays a little longer I will plant more willow and build a reback chunker like JO…
5 Likes
This is the small chp. A Kubota 3 hp diesel engine from an old milking machine. Electric motor that is run around 1600 rpm delivers the power to the grid. Small meter in front and some other experimental solutions to have a prove of concept. A project that is going on for maybe 10 years and now is the time to finish it.
Heat delivery is aprox 3 kW per hour and appears to small for the house so I bought an old Lister 30 hp diesel out of a boat.
Goal is to have it run on woodgas with diesel ignition, no spark conversion. There is 1000 gallons veggie oil, so we won’t be cold for another few years.
7 Likes
Joep, why is that?
A friend of mine has the Atmos boiler, only bigger. It’s very similar to my own locally made boiler and it likes any wood.
1 Like
Well said Joep.
Me and my family are at home, we are healthy, unless my wife has had severe epilepsy for many years, the crown cannot compare to this … She works unlimited, I clear overgrown plots, farm work, machine work in the workshop …
Here are some highlights:
7 Likes
Diesel-restricted diesel engine and wood gas, this is also my best and most useful option
1 Like
Steve I am just busy with normal farm stuff. Wanted to dig a trench the other day and ended up with a big puddle if hydraulic oil instead when I got my trencher out this spring so now I am taking it all appart to do what should be a simple seal replacement on the hydraulic cylinder.
I don’t know if you can see it in the photos but the cylinder is between those two steal plates and to get the two pins out that hold it in place I have to remove the trencher (already off) plus the hood battery mount and gas tank just to get to the pin for the cylinder. I haven’t figured out if I can get the lines off without having to pull them back through to the control valve. Probably need to replace them though because of the age alone.
Typically story of life on the farm simple projects take forever because of old equipment repairs.
Beyond that life is good here. I have enough food from my garden last year I can stay home and just work on projects around the farm. I figure with a few hundred acres to myself I should have social distancing covered.
8 Likes
Hi All. As I learned more the need for an engine fueling gasifier to have uniform fuel imput matched to it’s design type; the more I’ve learned to stretch my wood stoves’ eats-all. This morning started heating with doubled up paper grocery bags of filled from the splitter wood dust chips and slivers. Roll down tight to 7" by 7" by 13" fuel blocks. Put these on a bed of already established hot burning wood charcoal. Over air burn for no smoke. 2 hours heating in my house. DO NOT STIR OR POKE. It will burn devolve down. Repeat. Repeat. Switching back to actual wood logs to remake the driving active char bed. S.U
9 Likes