Monday, December 10, 2012

By The Fire

Eleven and a half hours at work on Saturday left me with little time to do anything this weekend.

After a very long and tiring week all I wanted to do was relax and sit by the fire.
While I relaxed and the wife and I sat chatted it up, I thought what a great time to see how the Pressed Sawdust Fire Loge would preform.

Even though it was fun and I enjoyed sitting out there relaxing, the fire log did not preform the way I wanted it to.
There is a happy medium in the blend of materials used and I didn't get it right.
The log refused to burn. That means I had too much sawdust in the mixture.  All the log did was smolder. I ended up having to break it up in order to get it to burn and even then it took forever.

I was thinking that if you had an unlimited supply of sawdust you could build one heck of a fire resistant room from these things. The insulation value would be through the roof. I guess you could use a mixture of water and ash as a paste for the mortar. Hu, that be something to think about.  
The next one I press will have less sawdust, more paper and more wood ash. If that don't work I might need to ease up on the down pressure and not get it so tight.

All Day Sunday was spent getting everything ready for the freeze. We have had a very warm fall and if I would have known that I would have planted more things in the gardens, but sure enough if I did it would have froze already.

That's all I got for now. Have a great week.    

6 comments:

  1. Isn't it crazy how much work homesteaders have before a freeze! I harvested some veggies, covered the garden, tucked the buns in, and added more heat lamps to the coops. My face and hands were frozen by the time I came in!!!

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    1. Kelly, it sounds like you had more to do than I did. The wife and kids did all the animal stuff the day before. All I had to do was make sure we were still going to have water.

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  2. MDR,

    I've been praying for the warm weather to hold here, so far it has. I'd like to actually harvest from the fall garden this year. Last year at this time we already had a couple of freezes and lost everything.

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    1. Izzy, that is why I did not plant much this fall. Last year we lost it all before Thanksgiving. This year we just had our first freeze. I could have had one more good month to grow.

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  3. Yeoldfurt cut some 40 gallon plastic barrels in half vertically last summer to make planters for me. I have broccoli growing in one right now ...was trying to figure out what I could cover it with that wouldn't blow away. TRASH CAN ...clean, empty plastic trash can fits like a glove over the top. I love things that are multi-purpose!

    ~HB

    : )

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    1. HB, multipurpose things is the only way to go. You should see some of the stuff I come up with.
      Glad you he made those for ya and good to hear you got something in them.

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