@mhagle I discovered coppicing and pollarding. No need to split wood if using limbs and branches as the wood source. The fuel size is small for rocket stove and wood is usually split to the size of kindling.

The rocket mass stove uses the exhaust warm a mass of masonry mass to provide radiant heat over a period of time. paul Wheaton at Permies.com has a number of interesting videos.
Looking for heat source that does not require electricity to run or distribute the heat. I have a fireplace and increased its efficiency by redesigning the firebox, but it does not provide several hours of radiant heat.

Another interesting cool practice I have never heard of before. Not that it is unusual, but I have never used wood for heat. But . . . it would work well with this "rocket stove" technology I encountered while at a sustainability workshop this Spring.

Dr. Deb Tolman is the woman who has championed keyhole gardens in this area. In the little town near where she lives, they are everywhere. She also experiments with all sorts of other sustainability projects. Pictured below is a rocket stove which runs on just a few twigs. Like a shopping bag of twigs will heat her house for several days.

The stove pipe runs through the center of that area where folks are seated. It heats up that mass of . . . I don't know what to call it. It was constructed from local clay and concrete I think. She cooks on top that metal barrel. Her home was originally a cylindrical metal grain bin. She also uses only captured water and has a massive outdoor clay oven, among other things.

Coppicing and rocket stoves would seem to go hand in hand??

Also, love your pics and hearing about your farm.

@eyo Interesting method to encourage us to buy new products instead of using up what we have on hand.

Thanks studentofearth I love these essays. I also love this guy Shad and his chicken video, his hair is great. For some reason I start thinking about politics as soon as he begins describing ADC versus Mart Parking Lot systems.

I am still grazing my tiny oak leaf lettuce crop, it is an unbelievably hardy strain, and quite tasty. So I got overzealous and planted more seeds, in fact there are ancient carrot sprouts decided to pop up and struggle along with the next lettuce. Three year old potting soil and expired General Hydroponics fertilizer in the "use what you have" spirit.

This is great: Oliver’s Markets sets up employee stock ownership plan

The privately held company, with four supermarkets spread from Cotati to Windsor, has set up an employee stock ownership plan that will enable most of its 1,000-plus workers to jointly buy 43 percent of the company over the next decade or so.

Owner Steve Maass said he set up the plan in order to keep his stores “in the community and keep them local.”

Maass, 71, said he didn’t want to one day sell his company to be absorbed into a bigger supermarket chain. Instead, he set up the employee stock plan and recently converted his business into a “social purpose corporation,” hoping the latter change will help provide extra reasons for future owners to rebuff takeover attempts.

Sounds similar to the employee owned co-op structure we had at Alvarado Street Bakery. I used to shop at Oliver's a lot when I lived in south county, great bulk section. The employees all seemed pretty happy too. Good vibe. Stomach growls remembering their deli food. Thanks Oliver's for not becoming another Lagunitas Brewing Company, thanks a lot.

Employee-owned is why I like Bob's RedMill too. Good stuff.

peace

@enhydra lutris The heat should get hot enough to burn most of the material that would be seen in smoke.

and storage capacity, it almost seems that one could get a lot of mileage out of the cut growth from pollarding fruit trees. Do you know what the residue from a rocket stove or gasifier is like? Is is ash, or a more charcoal like substance?

@gjohnsit Syria, Qatar, Iran, Turkey, Russia - it appears there is not even a methodical plan. Simply -we want someone to attack us- then we can expand into another war

drone attack

The United States shot down a pro-Syrian government drone that fired toward U.S.-led coalition forces in Syria on Thursday, a U.S. military spokesman said, in a major escalation of tensions between Washington and troops supporting Damascus.

The armed drone "hit dirt" and there were no injuries or damage done to the coalition patrol in southern Syria. But U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State, told reporters the drone meant to attack them and dismissed the possibility it had fired a warning shot.

FIRST ON CNN-Officials: US-led coalition conducted a 3rd strike Thursday against pro-regime forces in deconfliciton zone near At Tanf, Syria

— Ryan Browne (@rabrowne75) June 8, 2017

S. #Syria: 3 pro-Assad confirmed KIA by US strike near Tanf. All from Regime Shiite strongholds. 3rd (no pic) recently left #Fuah, Syr Hezb. pic.twitter.com/3h7hSvQolD

— Qalaat Al Mudiq (@QalaatAlMudiq) June 8, 2017