The costs of free firewood

Living in a suburb of a densely populated State, I don't have access to a ready source of firewood. I like to have enough of a stockpile of dry, seasoned hardwood for loss of heat in winter, but also fireplace and firepit fires. I can buy firewood for $325-$400 per cord. That is more expensive per BTU than oil heat. 

I choose to be an opportunist, collecting free wood on the side of the road. With free wood, it is fresh cut, green wood. It often needs additional cutting, plus splitting, stacking and drying. Often, the wood is full of rot, full of knot clusters and twisted wood that doesn't split easily. There is also the potential for insect infestation. However, for about 2.5 hours of work, I have 1/5th of a cord of maple that will be ready to burn next Fall.

Jam: Mixed Berry

First up, the disclaimer: I am not a professional food safety expert. I am not an authoritative person on Government-approved safety standards for food safety. By following this recipe, you assume all risk and responsibility.

Ok, that out of the way, on to the jam making... 

Making jam is pretty simple. I typically make a couple dozen half-pints of jam per year. It's mostly all the same procedure, as outlined in the de-facto standard, Ball Blue Book. Crushed fruit, sugar, maybe some acid and pectin, heated up, put in jars and processed. You can use most any fruit. I find that I use about 4 cups of crushed/chopped fruit to 3 cups of sugar. Also, I use the jars of powdered, low-sugar pectin. It allows the flavor of the fruit to come through much better when you use less sugar. Anyway, on to the recipe...

Makes 7 half-pints.

Ingredients

4 c. Strawberries 

2 c. Sweet cherries

1 c. Blackberries

1 c. Blueberries

Lemon juice

4 tb. Ball RealFruit Low or No-Sugar powdered pectin

3 c. Granulated sugar

Fill your canner kettle (or other large pot) with hot water and bring that to boil, covered. When the jam is done, this water should be at a rolling boil. I also typically fill the tea kettle with cold water and bring that to a boil as well. 

I typically can in wide-mouthed pint jars. In this case, I had some oddball 24-ounce regular-lid jars. I had 3 of those, a pint jar, and a half-pint jar ready, with lids and rings. Always have more jars, of different sizes ready and waiting. The jars and rings should be cleaned, but don't need to be boiled. The lids should always be new.

Remove the stems of the strawberries. Put them in a 4-cup container and crush them with a potato masher. Note: You can crush them in anything, but you will need to measure 4-5 cups of crushed fruit. They should crush down to about 2 cups of slurry. A little more or a little less doesn't matter. Stem and pit the cherries. Chop or crush them into the strawberry mash. Add blueberries and blackberries and crush them as well. I ended up with about 5.5 cups of crushed fruit slurry.  

Transfer the mash to a large pot. Add a tablespoon of lemon juice and 4 tablespoons of pectin. Bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring often, but not continuously. Once bubbling, add the sugar, one cup at a time, stirring it in thoroughly. Turn the burner to high and stir frequently to prevent sticking. Once the mix is boiling so hard that you can't stir it down, start a 1-minute timer. You WILL get splattered with boiling sugar/fruit mix. At the end of the minute, remove the pan from the heat. 

Using a wide funnel or a steady hand, transfer the jam to your prepared jars. Leave 1/4" of head space. Wipe any jam from the top of the jar witb a damp paper towel. Place the lid and ring on the jar and screw it down finger tight. You want it closed but not wrenched down. Oh, and you will find the now-hot jars difficult to hold. If you have a canning rack, place the jars in it. If not, you should put an old, clean kitchen towel or hand cloth in the bottom of your canner. Place the canner rack into the boiling water. If using a towel, place the jars in one at a time. Process pints and half-pints for 10 minutes. I did my 24-oz. jars for 13 minutes. Remove the jars from the water and place them on a heat-proof surface away from drafts where they will be undisturbed for 12-24 hours. When fully cooled, be sure to label the jars with their contents and the date. If any jars don't seal, place them in the refrigerator.

5 Hours Or Less: Santa's Village - Jefferson, NH

Reviving the "5 Hours Or Less" tag, we took a quick weekend trip up to New Hampshire. We stayed at The Lantern Resort (formerly, The Lantern Inn and Campground) which is situated in Jefferson, NH, right across the street from Santa's Village. This is always a fun trip, no matter the age. The one hazard is that you will feel compelled to listen to Christmas music when you get back, even if it's July.


Here are a handful of clips from some of the rides.

Log Flume

Ho Ho H2O Bucket Dump

Rudy's Rapid Transit Coaster

Gardening: Drying oregano

I demonstrate how I sun-dry my Southern New England grown oregano. The process takes 3-5 days from cutting to finished product. This should be all the oregano I need for the next year. There are many other ways, but you can't argue with simpicity plus success.

Beer Brewing: Brewing vs. Gardening

I decided to try my hand at small grain growing. And what better grain to grow than barley? It was somewhat of a last minute decision, so I ended up with some subideal conditions and limited choices. Ideally, I should have prepped the bed last Fall and ordered a nice, top-quality malting barley.

Instead, I ended up with a hasty bed prep and the only 2-row barley (Conlon) that I could find in small quantity with short notice. That said, it is coming along nicely. The coverage was a little thin, despite my heavy broadcast seeding. We had moderately heavy rain and unusual some cold at germination time. I didn't reseed some of the really thin areas because I kept waiting for more to germinate. Still, I think it came out pretty nice.

Beer Brewing: Oatmeal Extra Pale Ale

Time to step out on my own. It's really not too hard to formulate your own beer recipes. Take roughly 10 lbs. of grain, with the majority being pale-malt barley, add some hops, ferment with some yeast, beer. A cousin-in-law (is that a thing) went to a restaurant and asked for suggestions of beer choice based on the sign. I suggested the oatmeal extra pale ale, based on the description on the website. She opted for a different one, but I caught the bug.

I decided to make a simple recipe with 2 lbs. of flaked oats and 8.5 lbs. of 2-row pale malt. I'm going to hop this with 2 kinds of hops and ferment with Safale S-05 yeast. It should make a light blonde ale with a good mouthfeel and plenty of head retention at 5% alchohol.

Beer Brewing: The next chapter

I am a really, really bad blogger. I just realized that I started writing this post 6-ish months ago and never finished it. So, here it is... 

Apparently, it was more than a year ago that I first made beer in the modern era. If you read that post, you know that I made beer nearly 20 years ago and it was time to start again. Well, since then, I have brewed a few more beers. I did an American pale ale, an Irish red, and American red, a golden ale, and a couple others that I can't think of. All of these were extract kits with additional special grains. All of them were good, but all were lacking something...

I decided that I wanted more. One problem with kits, aside from the price is that you are limited to only what is being sold. The solution is to go to an all-grain brew. Using all grain adds complexity but it also adds flavor.

So, I went to the net to find a brew. I found a red rye recipe which looked promising. I like red beers. I like rye beers. Therefore, I must like red rye beers. I acquired all the ingredients for the beer and made it up. The process was smooth, although the sparging step was tedious. I tried a continuous sparging, which took a really long time.

The only other issue was that I had a faulty scale. I weighed out the right amount of priming sugar, but the measured volume way way too high. So, I put in the correct volume of sugar. The right amount was probably half way between, because the carbonation level was really weak. It was a nice red color, although, the floral, spicy notes of rye were burried a bit in the end product.

Random Thoughts: Food Shortages

In this day and age, it seems shocking and unacceptable at the thought of food shortages in our fully industrialized western world. However, it has happened in Rhode Island (one of highest population density States). The stated reason is weather. However, the diversity of crop shortages suggest something more dire.

It is my belief that the issue is primarily one of logistics combined with centralization of production. It is my opinion that is is an inherently bad thing to have broccoli and tomatoes produced in the same place at the same time. They are two very different crops with very different requirements.

For a small family farm, that approach is about diversification, just like investments. You don't put all your money in high-risk stocks, so you shouldn't put all your efforts into one crop. However, that approach is antithetical to the centralized monoculture production found on large farms.

If it's unusually hot or dry or cold or wet, you get shortages and delays. If all the region produces is a single crop, there is a minor annoyance. If the region produces all your food, well...

This problem is compounded with the logistics of production and distribution. Farmers (large farm coops or multi-national food companies) decide what to grow based on the price of each crop. If broccoli is high priced, a farm grows lots of broccoli. However, every farmer does the same thing. The result is an over-production of broccoli and an under-production of tomatoes.

Meanwhile, when it comes to market, everyone has broccoli and everyone wants tomatoes. This happens much more with commodities, however, all crops are slowly migrating towards this model and I fear the end result will be less than great.

What does this long ramble mean? Wel, aside from being unable to buy broccoli for the last month, it means I need to try to produce a lot more food in my small garden this coming season. I will need to spend more time weeding and watering because I, quite literally, can't afford to sacrifice one bit of production. It also means I need to be a lot more focused when buying seeds. Anyone know what will be a shortage next Fall/Winter?

Fishing: Good, great and even better.

I got invited to go fishing on a rental boat last week. I had been meaning to go. For a couple months now, my 5 year-old has been asking to go. Her first (and second and third) time fishing. My 8 year-old had fun enough, but didn't really take to it.

So, when I got the invite, I asked if we could bring my 5 year-old along. We went out in some fairly rough inshore seas from a moon tide, and had a pretty dismal first hour with 1 sea robin caught.

After that, the seas subsided and the wind stopped gusting. Then, it was nearly lock and load fishing... for everyone but me. My daughter pulled up a bunch of black seabass and scup (aka, porgies). I managed a couple of keeper scup. I did manage to pull in 3 short fluke, but no keepers.

At the end of the day, we went home with 8 good sized scup and 3 black seabass. More importantly, I got a day on the water. Most importantly, my daughter got a day on the water.

Chickens go for a walk

Chickens grow fast. The typical supermarket bird is 8-12 weeks old. That means they go from palm-of-your-hand to a large roaster in a few months. The traditional breeds that we choose are a bit slower growing, but they still grow fast. In fact, they are quickly out-growing their plastic tub.

We decided to let them go outside today. I had some plastic chicken "wire" fencing. I used some sticks and stakes to form an enclosure out on the grass. They spent most of the day outside. They'll probably be outside permanently by the end of the week.

Chickens!

There aren't a lot of options for me when it comes to livestock. In fact, to comply with the letter of the law, I really can't have any traditional livestock. I could breed "pet" rabbits for food, but that's about it. However, there is enough wiggle room that I can safely keep chickens, as long as I don't annoy my immediate neighbors.

For years, I had some Rhode Island Reds. Then, one fateful night, I went to see Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I wasn't home to secure the birds at sunset. A raccoon found his way through the weak point of my run and killed the last of my girls.

Winter was brutal and Spring was late and the we had an out-of-town wedding, so we held off ordering some chicks until late June. We recieved them last week and they are settling into their new home nicely.

Too much thyme

I have posted before about not having enough time. Generally speaking, I'm sure no one has enough. For the first time, I can say I have too much thyme.

Free wood!!!

This post could alternately be titled "Waste not, want not" or "Right place, right time." I recently discovered, unfortunately, that my deck stairs are about to fail catastrophically. Since I'm rebuilding them, I might as well upgrade them. My deck is in dire need of a resurfacing, and I am intending to use tropical hardwood.

Specifically, I'm planning on using garapa. It is cheaper than ipe but more durable than luan(phillipine mahogany). So, since I intend to use garapa for the deck, I might as well use it for the stair treads too.

So, I was at the specialty lumber store picking up my wood. It was the end of the day, so the guys were cleaning up. They happened to get a shipment today of 5/4"x4" decking. That came shipped on 3/4"x4" rough palattes made of mahogany. They started breaking it to fit in the dumpster. I asked if I could have it and the guy told me I could have all I wanted and, if interested, could come back once a month and get lots, lots more. So, for a little work with a hammer to pull some nails, I now have a couple stacks of mahogany which will become something some day. Even if the short stuff is firewood, it's still free!

Recreation: A fishing we will go...

One of the best parts about living in Rhode Island is the access to some of the best fishing in the world. In my opinion, it is (or should be) as much of a destination fishing spot as any other place. State fishing pride aside, I managed to get out fishing in a rented boat for some fluke (summer flounder) this past week. It was a fantastic outing with basically non-stop action of black sea bass and fluke. The black sea bass season is still closed until July 2nd, but it still kept the trip sporty instead of a slog. We managed an 18.25" fluke and a (my personal best) 26" fluke. Here are some photos:

Politics: Rhode Island's Doom

Rhode Island is interesting from a political science point of view. Historically, we were founded on freedom and liberty. We were the first State to declare independence from England*. It seems a natural fit that we would be a bastion of individual liberty. However, for better or worse, we were also the location of the birthplace of the American industrial revolution. This meant that we were also the place of tedious wage-slave labor. The work was easy, so the pay was low and the hours were long just to barely make a living. Then arose the idea of protecting the little guy from unsafe conditions through labor unions. Unions are not a bad idea. They give power to the powerless, which can be used to protect those powerless people. However, I'm going to throw in one other important historical factor. Prohibition.

 

Prohibition led to the rise of the mob. Need some liquor? The mob can help you. Need protection from the law to conceal your liquor use? Hey, the mob's got a guy for that. Need protection from the mob? The mob can do that too. Wait, what?

 

So, back to unions... Power to protect the little guy is great. Power to abuse the little guy or the big guy or anyone who gets in your way? Not so much. Combine the power of the unions with the power of the mob and you've got a problem. Sure, prohibition ended and the mob was rounded up. However, the culture of corruption and abuse of power remains.

 

The General Assembly in RI has ALL the official power. More specifically, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader have the power. They usually are elected by less than 5000 people and often by only a few hundred people. In recent years, after 5-10 years in power, they get thrown in prison or are so disgraced that they have to step down. In almost every case they are Democrats. It's couldn't really be otherwise because we have had single-party rule for more than 75 years.

 

Party aside, the real issue with our current political environment is that people who vote, do it for the wrong reason. It's rare that someone votes FOR a person. Usually, the are voting AGAINST the other person. And when they do vote FOR a person, they are usually doing it because of their physical appearance (e.g. Obama's skin color, Hillary's gender, John Kerry's hair, etc.) or some other triviality. Probably half (if not more) don't even know the first thing about their selected candidate, which brings up the worst offense of all... Voting for the letter next to someone's name. People blindly do what they are "supposed to do." If Hillary wins in 2016, it will be because of her gender and the letter next to her name. Otherwise, she probably wouldn't even vote for herself, given how horrible she is.

 

Every election season, I have some hope that things will change in Rhode Island. Every election season I am disappointed. Now that a number of candidates have declared their intention to run for President, it is the start of the new election season. Hence, the new hope rises again. This could be the year. How do Cubs fans do this every year? It's hard enough to do every four years.

* - I was told this all my life, however, there is some debate on the internet over which State was actually first and what it means to "declare" independence. However, our declaration was taken seriously, which is why RI was immediately occupied and suppressed before we could join the Revolutionary War.

Amazon: My first let-down

Well, it had to happen eventually. A great company can only get so big before service starts to suffer. I just sent the following review for packaging feedback on Amazon.

"This was my first and last purchase from Prime Pantry. I was wondering how a mix of canned goods and dry good would be packed without damage. The answer is that they wouldn't. The dry goods were neatly packed and stacked with heavy cardboard separating it from the cans. The cans were just thrown in haphazardly. 8 of 10 cans of tomatoes, 3 of 4 cans of beans and 1 can of Rotel were dented so severely, I will likely have to refrigerate them."

Fishing: Getting ready for squid

The change of seasons is finally upon us. Meteorological Spring started March 1st. The Spring Equinox was on the 20th. For most people, Spring begins when the weather turns and you can open the windows and the crocuses bloom. We finally have a near-term warming trend which looks like it will hold or improve for the next few weeks at least. For me, this means a lot of things. It means the Spring flowers will bloom and that I need to start my tomatoes and that I can get out in the garden and hoe down the overwintered weeds. It means that I finally don't have a weather related excuse why I can't clean the garage out. Outside projects like filling a couple holes in the driveway and repainting the shed doors and replacing the window trim on the house are all on the horizon. Most importantly (to this post anyway), it is the start of the saltwater fishing season.

I'm not a big freshwater fisherman. A lot of people go nuts over trout, but I've never even caught one. It's one of the first fish you can catch and keep in the Spring, but the idea of waking up at 3 a.m. to stake out a spot on opening day doesn't sound all that appealing. For me, the start of the season is when the squid arrive. They come in sometime between mid-March and early-June every year in anything from small pods to massive ones. Living here, I always wanted to go out squid jigging in the Spring. I would hear stories and see the results of people who would fill a 5 gallon bucket in an hour back in the 80s and early 90s. For some reason, I could never get my fishing act in gear until the main part of the run was over.

Two years ago, I was on the ball, prepped and ready to go with jigs and a rod and bucket in my trunk at all times. I checked the forums, went out early, stayed out late, lost sleep, and obsessively read fishing reports. All of this was for nothing though because 2013 was the Spring-squid-run-that-wasn't. So, last year, I was a little hopeful, but mostly reserved because I didn't think I would ever see a bucket full of squid. However, my reserved hope was more than enough because it was a banner year for squid. In fact, it was probably the best year for squid from shore in a decade or two.

So now, as we approach the start of the new saltwater fishing season, the question remains. Will this be another banner year? It makes some sense. If there were more squid, then there would be more squid eggs. If there are more squid eggs, there should be even more squid. Further, if the weather has been bad enough (it was) to keep the commercial squid vessels in port, then there should be more squid to make it inshore. Lastly, if the weather breaks hard so that it goes from frigid to warm and stays that way, the squid should move en-masse like they did last year. So, all in all, I am hopeful that this will be another good year for squid. Only time will tell though. Fortunately, with the change in weather, that time is near.

Home Repair: It always breaks on a Sunday

Isn't it always the way? You're relaxing on a Sunday afternoon when you discover a critical part of your home has broken and few stores are open and repair people charge triple. In this case, I heard water running when I was doing laundry. I thought I might have had a burst outdoor faucet. The shutoff for that is in my furnace room. Upon turning on the light, I see water all over the floor and my expansion tank hanging down instead of pointing up.

Fortunately, Home Depot was open and had exactly what I needed. This is what $33 will buy you:

It's a fairly simple fix. You spin off the now full 4.7 gallon steel tank. A couple wraps of teflon tape go around the threaded end of the tank. For good measure, I removed the elbow and put more tape on that part. It was a good idea because there was no tape on the threads which were engaged. The new tank spins on and then is adjusted for position. It took about 10 minutes plus another 20 to go to Home Depot. It's good to be handy. 

Beer Brewing: Phase 1

I brewed beer once before, but most of the equipment belonged to a friend's father. Over the last 5 years or so, every so often, I've had the thought that I would like to do it again. The last time I did it was during the '90s home brewing era. There were about 2 dozen dedicated stores within a 40 minute drive of my house. Now, there are a couple small places 40+ minutes away with limited stock.

Fortunately, my father-in-law has the equipment and got me an extract kit for Christmas. Otherwise, I would still be considering and dragging my feet.

The instructions were great. You start by bringing some water up to 170°. You add the bag of grain and hold the water between 150° and 160° for 30 minutes. 

After that, you add the 2 cans of extract, the package of malt and the bag of hops. You bring it to a boil and hold it there for an hour. 

The final part of phase 1 is adding the mix to the fermentation vessel (aka, a food grade bucket). You add a couple gallons of cold water, dump in the mix and the add enough water to bring it to about 5.5 gallons. A quick trip outside into the snow brought the temperature down to 75 degrees. At that point, I added the yeast, and closed the lid for a couple weeks.

Gardening: The Real New Years Day

To the average citizen, the New Year begins with a turn of the calendar, a glass of champagne, fireworks or a kiss. To a gardener (well, this gardener, anyway), it begins at the start of the growing season. For me, today was that day.

I got some trays of starter soil ready, pulled out my bags of disorganized seeds from previous years, added this years seeds, and pulled out all the things I needed to start. In this case, I need to start onions, leeks, parsely, butterfly weed* and yarrow.

I have been getting better and better with onions each year. I usually do medium to large yellow storage onions. This year, I decided to expand my planting to grow red onions and leeks. Last year, I had great results with my relatively small planting (100ish plants) of Pontiac onions. They were a medium-large onion, uniform in size, that lasted from Aug. to Nov. before we used them up. There were only a handful of small ones despite weeding neglect and none went soft or started to turn black.

I decided to try to have a repeat performance with Pontiac. In addition, I selected Red Bull (a red storage onion) and King Richard leeks. I got one packet each with 250 seed per packet. They have a 75-85% germination rate and I usually get a third of them are too runty to plant. That means I should get 133 red, 133 yellow, and 133 leeks. If I had more space, I would probably plant 5-10 times as many yellow, and twice as many red. But, I work with what I have.

Planting is simple. I filled an open flat 2/3 full of seed starter mix. I made straight rows, 1/2" deep, 1" apart. I wasn't too particular with where the rows start or end with the onions. I made sure to only do complete rows of leeks. I marked them, and covered the flat with plastic. I ended up with 7 rows of onions (finished with some leftover seed from 2 years ago) and 2 full rows of leeks.

Tomorrow, I'll get the parsely, yarrow, and butterfly weed seeds in the dirt. Next week, I might start some spinach, lettuce and peas to put in a cold frame. I usually start both of those too late, so I'd like to get a jump on them this year. 

* - Butterfly weed (aka Pleurisy root or Orange milkweed) is a pipe dream for me. Every year, I try to grow it. Every year, it fails to germinate, dies at transplant, or, in my most successful year, doesn't flower and dies in the Winter. Still, I have hope.