Thistleblooms Rambles

[thistlebloom]

This is how we spent the day. My husband cut, I hauled. We have two big piles in the burn area now.

There is a silver lining I guess. 4 of the 8 panels are usable, a fifth one is a little skewywampus but dh thinks it can be straightened out. I can buy another panel and we can set it back up. But not there. We think it will go next to the woodshed, which gives the dogs a better view of the driveway. And no more tarp roofs!! I will be happy to not use a tarp for the rest of my life.
It's only for them to sleep in at night, during the day they will be kenneled in my old garden spot when we aren't home. (The other three seasons, not in winter). I'll just need to plant grass in there and make them a small shelter.
Now I can see the corral area much better from the house. And honestly, it was a bit of an eyesore with that tarp roof, lol. Not so much in the summer when the hops completely covered it and it was just a green wall.
I didn't take an after picture, but it looks very different with the run down and the tree gone. I will need to find a different place to park the classic wheelbarrow collection. Or maybe not. We'll see what my OCD does this winter.

I'm glad we got it done and all cleaned up while it was dry. May be getting snow tonight. Larka is kenneled in the hay barn at night, and Wren has become a house dog of sorts. But she's old and has very good house manners. Larka just gets too hot in here, plus she's large, smelly and has an overabundance of hair, and did I mention she's smelly?
I appreciate my hay barn more every single day. What did I ever do without it?

 

[Bruce]

Lemonade from lemons TB!

 

[Ridgetop]

Some states don't allow for gas stoves to be sold that do not have the all this "new fangled" pilotless ignition.

The house in Yelm has an old wood cooking stove with 3 "burners" and an oven that I was going to donate to a museum or heritage collection. Now I might keep it and install it in the new place in Texas in case of a power outage. I brought home a large box of MJ's old kerosene lamps several years ago. They are stored in the old milk shed. I guess we will bring it home with the old pot belly stove from the bunkhouse. We noted that these were personal property in the escrow. We are planning to buy a large propane generator for emergencies, but this woodstove would work for cooking. Also heat in the winter. I will put it in one of the shop buildings. It is in perfect condition and has all the parts so will work just fine in an emergency. Of course by the time I learn to bake in a wood stove oven (it does have a thermometer gauge to show the temperature of the oven) the power outage might be over! On the other hand, if Biden and AOC do away with fossil fuels her way I might need this wood stove. Just need to make sure there are enough woods on the property to be able to get fallen limbs and dead trees for the stoves. Good thing I did not throw the kerosene lamps out!

DS3 said to buy a propane generator instead of a gas generator. Apparently propane can be stored without any problem for years, unlike gasoline. He has a large propane generator in Nipomo for his freezers and well pump.

 

[farmerjan]

Propane generators and any propane fired things is the way to go. Everyone here is going to propane, from cooking to any type of furnace/heat to generators. As long as the tank is good, the propane is supposed to keep indefinitely from what all I have been told. All the big commercial poultry houses here use propane for the heat... brooding the baby chicks etc. It burns alot cleaner than oil. The problem that I see is that nearly every single tractor made in the last 50 years is diesel.

Did anyone see where Bill Gates is the largest PRIVATE landowner of agricultural crop land.......???? Makes you wonder.

 

[Ridgetop]

Doesn't make me wonder! - wealthy liberals also have large investments in fossil fuels, tobacco, etc. They are all mouth like Biden.

If we don't have propane on our new ranch whenever we find it, I will see about having a tank installed and getting a propane stove. I considered keeping MJ's propane stove which is only 4 years old, but too much trouble. DS1 installed the conversion kit on hers, so he can do it again if we convert from electric. I wonder if a propane dryer would be a good idea too. Electric dryers really suck up the electricity, and you can't dry everything on the line all the time.

 

[farmerjan]

I have not used a dryer for over 20 + years. I dry everything on the line. Used to haul the washed clothes home from the laundromat and hung out. I do laundry on days it will dry ... they can stay out overnight if need be. I have a propane dryer in the storage trailer at DS property..... ain't seen it in over 20 years.... they operate efficiently and are easier on the wallet.

 

[thistlebloom]

I took a look at my oven burner tonight @Bruce , it doesn't have a flame once it's reached operating temperature, just that glow wire doodad.

@Ridgetop , you should for sure take that old cookstove. A family heirloom at least, and a very useful thing to have in the event of power outages. You could/should start a woodlot at whatever property you buy, unless it's already abundantly wooded.

 

[Alasgun]

@thistlebloom i hope you’ll allow me a single comment on “the wood cookstove” advice!
While on the ranch in the Dakotas 40 years ago we were dirt poor and for a couple years heated the house with a grand old cookstove. We shut off all the front rooms, bed rooms etc so we were actually only heating the kitchen and bathroom. Then we moved the kitchen table to the side and brought the big bed into the kitchen and because the kids were still quite small, we all fit in that bed!
due to the arrangement, i could reach the firebox door and add wood without getting out of bed.
back then i took a 2 man saw and welded a sucker rod along the spine so 1 man could use it pretty well. We were only breaking down old fence post so it worked, sorta.
Then on that glorious day that i got my first chain saw i cut a months worth of wood in 5 minutes!
lot of fond memories from those hard times!

 

[thistlebloom]

@Alasgun ,you are more than welcome to comment anytime you like. You have great stories to tell and I enjoy reading them. I can tell you're a been there, done that, kind of fellow in the school of practical wisdom.

Those old cookstoves don't have such big burn boxes, so I can imagine it's like feeding a baby bird to keep a house warm with one. The picture of you feeding it from bed made me smile.
Tools that decrease the labor and increase the payout are priceless!
We don't own a tractor, other than my little Janie, an old Farmall Cub and she doesn't have any implements. Pretty much just a trailer puller.
When our good neighbor offered to come over and pull some trees out of an area where I wanted a roundpen to work my horse we happily agreed. What he got done in a couple hours would have taken my husband and I a couple of months at least with chainsaws and loppers, and then we would have still had all the brush and stumps to contend with.

Back to heating with wood cookstoves, 40 years ago we visited friends who had just bought 40 acres on a hillside in WA, above the Columbia river. We met their neighbors who were living in a teepee. They heated the space with a wood cooker and said that one of them would take night duty to keep it going. Rough living for sure. Our friends never actually moved on to their property. The view was spectacular, but the property was steep and impractical.

 

[Ridgetop]

There is a trick to "banking" the fire in those old stoves so they never really go out since they can be hard to start in the morning when your tongue is hanging out for a cup of coffee! Same thing to "banking" the fire n the fireplace or woodstove at night so it keeps the coals alive for morning. God forbid the fire went out and you had to strike flint to light it in the middle of winter!!! The firebox is small, and the ash bin needed to be emptied every day. The oven is not very big either but will do in an emergency.

when we first married we needed a stove and fridge We got a stove that stood in 4 kegs off the floor. It had a lift up shelf on the top above the burners to keep food hot or warm plates. With its TWO tiny ovens it must have been a big seller when it first came out. Probably one of the original gas stoves made. Our first refrigerator was only about 4' tall. Also one of the first ones built and had been in the old lady's house all that time in use! They were very cheap, still worked great, and the old lady was excited about getting her first "modern" appliances! LOL We replaced the stove with an old model Gaffers & Satler range with 2 ovens, separate broiler, griddle, and a burner with a timer that I loved! You just set the timer and the burner shut itself off - no forgotten pots or burned food. Loved that range too.

I think we will bring that old stove home even if we have to store it with the old wood stove until we move to Texas. We are leaving the larger woodstove that my aunt used to heat her house. The buyer wants it. The woodstove we are taking s a small one that was used in the old bunkhouse. It is a genuine antique and works like a charm.

I love the convenience of new appliances but if you lose power, no heat of hot food. We can go out in the 5th wheel and cook and heat with propane, but it would be hard to fit everyone in that space. LOL