The old timers say to split a little every day And stack it away to season well, but from March to November I rarely do remember December will find me in a rut… traditional folk song* A couple from down south gives me a lesson at the wood pile: […]
Monthly Archives: October 2018
23 posts
A few weeks ago my neighbor and I were talking firewood. Specifically, we were talking about whether to stack with the bark up or the bark down. He’s a rugged, quiet, mid-western Norwegian type. “Well, you know,” he said. “The most popular show in Norway was about stacking firewood. […]
In Alaska running a chainsaw is a social skill. You go out with the gang, buck up some downed trees, bring them somewhere, pitch them off. It’s a good day. The thing is, with a few exceptions,* if you don’t know how to use a chain saw standardized how-to […]
The junk mail du jour was one of those women’s sportswear catalogs where trim, angular-jawed yuppies peer intently into the distance as they trot on a beach in eighty dollar jog bras made by poor women in the third world. On the cover, rear end facing the camera, was one […]
A fish walks into a bar. He looks at the bartender, puts his glass on the counter and says, “fillet.” Magazine short lists of quintessential ‘Things Men Should Know’—like how to start a camp fire, throw a punch and connect jumper cables—include how to fillet a fish. The funny part […]
“I’m working on a food chain, looking for a bite to chew. Out here on the food chain, telling you boys it’s true. You are what you eat. You also are what eats you.” Working on a food chain. 1985 folk song by Mark Graham The bottom line—right here at […]
Wind kicked up on the north end of Admiralty Island where no one lives. Thinking it might be wind that sometimes blows for half an hour at the bottom of the ebb then stops, and being in the rowboat, I anchored near shore to take a nap. Woke up […]
Part II in a series on outstanding volunteer-run assets in the Capital City Marie Drake Planetarium is open. People find their seats, they look at the star ball in the center of the room. Above them is the white domed roof thirty-feet across. The place fills to capacity. Parents talk, […]
Stoves are meant to take the heat. Chimneys aren’t. That’s why flammable creosote in a chimney is problematic. As the Chimney Safety Institue of America (yes, there is one) points out, clean chimneys don’t burn. It’s spring. Trees are leafing out. Rhubarb and garlic are up in the garden. Finches […]
Why this is a great idea Forty percent of humanity still cooks and heats with solid fuel (wood, dung, agricultural waste, coal, etc) over open fires or leaky stoves. Deforestation ruins the land. Pollution inside the home kills over 4 million people per year; the majority of them women and […]
Smoking fish is like brewing beer in the sense that commercial operations strive to make a consistent product. People doing it at home strive to come up with something so good they have to call their friends at odd hours and say, “You’ve got to try this.” Smoking is the […]