As I approached a dark shadow among bright tomato leaves I first saw her eye watching me. I had watered these plants in the greenhouse for four months and this dark silhouette was out of place. Clinging spread-eagle on the trellis holding the tomato vines was a large woodchuck. I moved away slowly, turned off the water, grabbed a metal stake, eased back and tried to impale this unmoving ogre but succeeded only in knocking her off her perch.  She scurried 50 feet into her hole, too fast for me to intercept and once again avoided the trap I had set weeks ago near her entrance. If only our dog, Shep, were alive!

“Guess what I saw in the greenhouse today?” I asked my wife that evening.

“Another giant snapping turtle?” she said. A few months before, a snapping turtle had wandered into the greenhouse, looking for a place to lay her eggs. I had relocated her some miles away from our pond to give the bass and catfish we eat a better chance to grow quickly. Snappers remove food from the chain that supports what we rely on.

“No, this time it was a large woodchuck – and she was climbing on the vines, eating tomatoes!” I said.

“How do you know it’s a she?”

“She was hanging on the fence with her whole belly exposed – which had shiny nipples – so she’s nursing little chucks!” I said.

“You’d better catch her before she eats everything.”

In rural areas, gardens become fortresses designed to keep critters out. Animals disregarding these boundaries sometimes become dinner.  But only if they’re caught, or shot. Because guns are noisy, make a mess, and hunting takes a lot of time, our preferred tools are five live traps, wire mesh cages with one or two entrances that slam closed when an animal trips the trigger. Traps are more patient than humans. They will sit there for days, even weeks. These most often catch young animals. Wiser animals either avoid these contraptions because traps look scary or never see others again who were stuck inside one. Cats, minks, weasels, painted turtles, toads and frogs we let go right away because they don’t compete for our food. Young bunnies, woodchucks, and chipmunks, skunks and raccoons we usually transport and release a few miles away. Rats, mice and other rodents we plant in the garden. We eat squirrel and rabbit meat and bury what we don’t eat.

A few of our neighbors also eat critters, though some call us when they catch a rabbit that they know we’ll take off their hands. One of our daughters told us she since saw a lady in her 80s dragging a snapping turtle by a rope around its neck. A classmate, who lived across the street, reported that her family had seen their neighbor dragging turtles home before – to make them into stew that lasts her a week. I’d sure like a photo of her dragging a 25 pound snapper. They’re even difficult for me to handle.

Over the years we’ve learned to minimize damage to our crops but periodically an animal surprises us. We no longer grow sweet potatoes or yams because we can’t stop rodents from snipping off the tops and devouring the tubers, killing the plants. Mice nibble about a tenth of the crop of regular potatoes but never decapitate the vines.

Keeping deer at bay is difficult. Unless confronted by a seven foot fence, they enjoy the buffet of salad greens and broccoli they assume we plant just for them. They are impossible to catch so we have to wait until hunting season to enjoy our veggies in the form of organic, free-range venison – not a bad option.

Except for hornworm caterpillars, fauna don’t like tomatoes. The large green worms with tails used to be very hard for us to find among the foliage until we learned that they hate water. Simply spraying cold water on plants that have chomped leaves make these sphinx moth larvae shake the front half of their body back and forth. It’s then easy to catch them and feed them to fish.

Squash, cucumbers and asparagus each attract their own species of insects that must be picked off to minimize damage. Cabbages, broccoli and related plants attract cabbage butterflies, small white fliers that come every year. Although there are organic pesticides that work well, we usually tolerate a few nibbled leaves and pick the green worms off the produce during preparation. If you miss a few it’s even easier to pick out caterpillars after they are cooked because they turn yellow and stand out against the greens. Since I do the cooking, I do this at the stove so picky eaters never see them. Luckily, onions, garlic, basil, oregano and other plants full of flavor grow well without protection.

Caterpillars that burrow inside fruit also damage crops like peppers, corn, pears and apples. Since they are typically quite small, they don’t do much damage unless there are very many of them. Sometimes their tunnels introduce bacteria, but processing fruit that has signs of distress saves most of it.

Together, Shep and I were great warriors. Before this Shetland Sheepdog passed away three years ago, we not only caught rabbits, woodchucks and squirrels but many, many birds. I chased rabbit and woodchuck intruders around the fenced interior of our gardens while she ran around the outside, barking furiously. This combination usually confused animals enough either for me to grab them by the hind legs or Shep by their necks as they squeezed under the fence. Now, without her, they usually get away by bolting under or catapulting over the waist-high fence. Shep’s daughter Tess, who passed away a few weeks ago, never figured out why she should ever chase an animal.

Berries are another story. We grow enough raspberries, blackberries, currents, gooseberries and grapes so that, if we pick diligently, we collect more than half. Blueberries are different. They ripen one by one over an extended period enabling birds to snatch every one. As they redden to blue, half a dozen feathered species work hard to gobble them all.  To avert this we surround blueberry bushes with fencing and arch netting over the top. Still, a few birds get in – but find no way out. Years ago, Shep would run interference around the fence, and birds would hardly notice me inside. They didn’t seem to know that the fence stops the dog, and would fly into my hands. This commotion ended in my telling the bird that if it gets into our blueberry enclave one more time, it’ll be baked in a pie. Either not understanding my tirade or, more likely, addicted to blueberries, some return. One year I cut a toenail off every captured bird – and I captured one missing four nails within a few weeks. But random birds eating blueberries hardly affect our harvest so we let them go with a warning. If a kid is around, we let them have the thrill of holding, then releasing these interlopers.

If raccoons or foxes attack our sweet corn too vigorously we set up an electric fence around the corn patch that discourages even the most persevering interloper. This electronic fencer can produce one inch sparks and charge miles of wire so it really commands respect on a small plot of corn. We didn’t use it this year but had to discourage a family of raccoons last year in order for us to secure enough sweet corn for eating fresh and freezing 50 pounds for the winter.

This summer we had only Tess for canine crop protection. We selected her dad as a sire so Shep’s offspring would do well in 4-H dog shows. We didn’t know that perfect confirmation doesn’t necessarily result in a competent working dog. Shep’s one litter produced a single puppy, Tess, who was beautiful, obedient, and won ribbons, but had no clue how to worry, or catch critters. She’d watch me chase birds around the blueberry enclosure and couldn’t care less about what I was doing. And she certainly wouldn’t get involved. Now, she too is gone. The same pancreatic disease that took Shep also did her in. They both died in their eleventh year and we miss them both.

*****

“So when are you getting a puppy?” one daughter asks. She lives in Boston and every time we talk this question comes up. During all four decades with our three daughters we’ve always had a dog. It seems they can’t understand us living without one. Or visiting us without a dog to cuddle and play with.

“We’ll accept a dog that adopts us – but we have never had to look for an animal,” I say. Our dogs, cats, sheep, rabbits, Guinea pig and chickens all appeared or were rescued. And we enjoyed and took very good care of them. Not that we accepted every animal offered: we wouldn’t take a horse, or a cow. They’re just too large. And goats? Too frisky and they enjoy jumping up on vehicles!

“ I think you should get an Australian Shepherd,” our youngest said.

“I’ve heard they’re a lot of work.”

“Not as much as our neighbor’s border collie, but you need a dog to keep you in shape. You complained that as Shep and Tess got older they were just too slow. You won’t ever have to drag an Aussie along when jogging.”

“It’s true. I’d run more if I had a dog to keep me company, or to tire out.”

“And what about chasing herons? You need a dog for that now that we’re not there!”

These large birds are amusing. Because we stock our pond and feed fish, we chase away blue and green herons that settle in to eat small animals along the edges of the pond. When our kids were young, one of their jobs was chasing these birds away, an effort that made a two-year old feel invincible. The terrorized birds never looked back. Eagles, though, we tolerate. There are only a few and we’ve never seen one catch a fish. A young eagle will hover over the pond and dive, only to get soaked and splash to shore to dry off. After a few misses they fly away. They never earned a white head at our pond. On the other hand, kingfishers always get their minnow, but we don’t mind losing a few. They’re not on our menu.

Seed-eating birds are also a problem. Crows can pull up a whole row of sprouting corn to swallow germinating kernels. Sparrows love mature peas, beans and sunflowers and can quickly reduce pods, ears and heads to shambles. We can save seeds for planting the following years by enclosing a few seed heads in mesh bags or by growing them inside a cage or the greenhouse. Flocks of birds also harvest grains and mustard when we plant small patches so we’ve given up trying to grow these.

Not all animals eat what we grow. Snakes and toads help reduce slug populations while many types of birds glean caterpillars and other insects from crops. Hawks and owls catch rodents. We see bobcats once in awhile but have never witnessed one catching a meal. Many nights we hear coyotes yipping but they rarely let us see them. Every year we strategize on how to produce enough food so that we end up with what we need, recognizing that critters will try and eat what they can. We’re happy as long as we get at least half and don’t have to spend too much time discouraging competition.

****

“Whatever happened to that woodchuck in the greenhouse?” asked my wife.  “It’s been more than a month and you haven’t mentioned catching her”.

“I’ve had three traps set the whole time, and, although I’ve had to reset them a few times when they were tripped but empty, but I never got her.”

“Did she eat everything?”

“She must have left – and now either rats or squirrels are attacking the tomatoes – it’s always something!”

Fossil Abstinence – Legacy Shovels and Solar Collectors

A shovel – the pointed, long handled variety used to dig and fill holes can be a symbol. My grandfather introduced me to his favorite tool he called a “Schaufel”, German for shovel. He not only used his for digging, backfilling, and cleaning up after dogs but also for preparing beds for plants, hilling potatoes, turning compost, dispatching weeds, and edging flowerbeds, gardens and tree trunks. He had come to the US from Germany in 1928 to make his fortune with his German Shepherd dogs and a few years later sent for my grandmother and their 14 year old daughter.

In the early 1930’s he won at a major show with one of his dogs but when this champion and another were summarily stolen, his wife urged him to find other work. Too many folks were abandoning dogs at their boarding kennel and loss of his prize stock devastated their income.  In these depression years, she resorted to cleaning homes and got him to earn money with his phenomenal “green thumbs”. He spent long hours beautifying properties nearby and trimming grass. He was too shy to present bills so she took care of finances. Word spread and soon he had more work than he could handle. Their daughter grew up, married my dad and two of us kids spent 1950’s summers with our grandparents. We tried to help, but, looking back, more often were a nuisance. But they didn’t seem to mind.

Often, after a quick breakfast, we’d grab a pail of worms, jump into what we called his “spider” truck because it had wheels with spokes, and head out. Worms came in two varieties: night crawlers that we’d catch with the help of a flashlight or red wrigglers he would help us dig along the ditch where the kitchen sink emptied into the garden. He’d shovel, we’d pluck worms. Through our grade school summers, he’d typically drop us off at a client’s dock on the lake and we’d fish while he trimmed shrubs, planted flowers and or manicured lawns.  We’d get together for lunch and continue to fish at another dock until time to head home with a bucketful. The big ones our grandmother would prepare and we’d plant the more numerous fry next to vegetables. This latter operation was quick: our grandfather would shove his ever present shovel deep into the soil, rock it fore and aft, and pull it out. We’d drop whole sunfish or fish parts that we didn’t eat into the earth slit and step on the edge of the hole to close it.

Our grandfather spoke few words, in mixed German and English. He primarily used his body, his fingers, his eyes, his smile and his shovel to motion us to come, to get our worms, to bring the fish bucket, or fetch the air rifle. Shooting was a favorite pastime that started with cans and ended with grasshoppers and locusts as targets, often at considerable distances. When we became good shots, he seemed happy to just watch.

My grandfather was also an expert with a scythe. Where folks now use engine powered string trimmers, sickle bar and rotary mowers and brush hogs, he would use his scythe, an Austrian type with a straight shaft and an offset handle. Using this tool he’d trim around trees and fences, cut an acre of hay, or cut down weeds among rocks and along streams. For lawns he used a push mower that had six helical blades, and in later years also walked behind a mower of the same type with a small engine. He never had a rotary mower that burns more fuel and makes more noise than the reel-type. I remember him, primarily with hand gestures and examples of grass blades, say “How even my mower cuts grass, every blade cleanly cut, and how sloppy the adjacent lawn looks – with blades of grass shredded.”

I hadn’t noticed, but I’ve not forgotten. I’ve never had a reel mower and use a large rotary mower with three blades that only cut cleanly and evenly when extremely sharp, a condition I achieve only few hours each year. But when I use a scythe to clear weeds or trim, I think of my grandfather. But it’s his shovel that has become my symbol of an ideal tool: that extends our hands, enabling them to dig long hours without bending over too much, scrape hard materials that would destroy fingernails, and props us up while resting. And it can do this for an entire lifetime.

Although I don’t use my shovel as often as did my grandfather, fifty years later I still think of him when I do. His soil was sandy, without stones, and easy to slice with a shovel. Mine is armored with rocks that deflect a blade so I find it easier to wiggle the tines of garden fork between stones to prepare planting beds, dig potatoes, uncover worms and harvest garlic. The fork doesn’t slice worms and damage tubers like a blade but a shovel works better for prying out burdock roots, harvesting horseradish, distributing manure, preparing asparagus beds and digging other varieties of ditches or holes. If I had to choose only one, it would be the shovel.

I don’t know what happened to my grandfather’s shovel but my dad gave me the one I now use. I had complained to him that the handles broke off my series of shovels from local hardware stores that had weak transitions between the blade and handle. At a yard sale he had found an old variety whose point had been worn to a dip. “This one has a very strong, forged socket that firmly supports the handle. Take care of it and it will last a lifetime,” he said.

And it is lasting. But before giving it to me, to reform the point, he had ground away quite a bit of the blade making it both shorter and narrower than is typical. It’s now an ideal tool that works extremely well prying out rocks and burdock roots, rooting out thistles, planting trees and potatoes, burying animal remains, making lawns level, handling aggregate for concrete, and edging around walls and flowerbeds. Except in winter, when it’s too small for snow, it’s extended my hands, sometimes with help of a foot, almost every week for more than 20 years.  With its help alone, one could grow enough food for a family with some extra for neighbors, dig foundations and wells, and mix concrete or make rammed earth for buildings.

In a different arena, a solar collector can become a tool like a shovel. Just as a shovel extends our hands and fingernails, multiplying what they can do many times, a tool that collects sunlight extends what windows do in a home bringing in light and heat during the day. But a more powerful solar collector can harvest much more sunlight and store it so that it provides heat and light day and night, even through days of cloudy weather. In hot climates, an even better system should also provide cooling and provide power, though not require power from an outlet. And like a good shovel, last a very long time without attention, and certainly not require fuel.

I’m grateful for my shovel legacy that works land so well. And, with the help of many others, hope to create solar tools just as valuable for keeping homes comfortable, providing power for families, with extra harvested energy shared with neighbors. And one day they may become good enough to become legacies that last a lifetime.

Turn wild weeds, or lawn, into a “Three Sisters Garden” in a few hours without an engine! While planning your new garden, soak the seeds you’ll want to plant for 24 hours, and then rinse them twice a day for a few days (the method for sprouting seeds for salads) so they’re sprouting when you’re ready to plant (or for motivation to prepare the plot!).  You’ll have to get them in the soil or in containers with a growing medium before the leaves show or the roots get too tangled. Procure sheets of used material that won’t let weeds grow through. Don’t buy new stuff for this purpose- reuse sheets on their way to a landfill or recycling. Neighbors have given me old tarps, tents, swimming pool covers made of black plastic, outdoor carpeting, and even swimming pool liners that all have worked well. Holes and tears don’t matter – you’ll be adding a lot more. Clear material doesn’t work well because weeds grow underneath if they can see daylight.

This past week I converted two patches of weeds (30’ x 80’ and 20’ x 80’ of Canadian thistle, goldenrod and nettles) into gardens that should soon produce hundreds of pounds of squash, corn and beans (the three sisters). We hadn’t had rain for a long time so the larger patch I scythed because the roots of the five foot tall weeds would not pull out of the soil. I used a hay fork to pile them and the dead stems from last year along one edge. Any exposed stones I also removed. I spread out the 6-mil black plastic former pool cover and threw the weeds and stones on top of the plastic. This ballast prevents wind from moving the cover and protects the plastic from being degraded by sunlight, helping it last many years. This is what it looks like at the ballast stage:  http://screencast.com/t/MjAyZWEyY I tied little loops every three feet along a string and suspended this above each row to indicate where to make holes. After pushing aside any weed ballast in the way I cut three 14” sides of a square to make flaps that I tuck under the downhill side of the hole. You can see a layout sketch here:   http://screencast.com/t/YmM2MzNm Kneeling, I use a garden fork to turn over the soil in these holes, one by one, removing any roots, or whole root ball, and place them on top for more ballast. It’s also good to reach under the covering and contour the soil on the uphill side of the hole so that rain drains into each hole. The edges of the covering can be tucked under the soil and the sprouting seeds planted. I put five corn plants in every other hole, and two squash in those between. The next row, four feet from the first, I place the holes in the covering between adjacent rows so that any rain running down the slope, enters a hole. To give the corn a head start, I plant three climbing beans with the corn a few weeks later.

Yesterday we received more than two inches of rain and for the second garden I was able to pull out the thistles and nettles and simply throw them to the edge. After spreading the cover material, I proceeded as above. The scythe is a bit quicker but leaves stubble that is annoying to walk and kneel on. After it rains, if any puddles form in the covering, it’s important to poke holes so that all the water is available to the plants. It takes only a few minutes to poke holes in every puddle using a garden or hay fork. Of course, the holes for plants do not have to be evenly spaced, nor in straight lines, but I find it easier to do the math on productivity when using regular intervals. Also, when everything is covered in heavy mulch, it’s easier to find the next hole if it’s spaced the same as the last.

I always carry a sharp scissors in the “pencil” pocket of my bib overalls both to cut the holes and to halve any slugs that come along. These voracious pests can destroy sprouting plants before they get a good start. Tucking in the covering edges makes it difficult for slugs (and snails if you have them) to hide. This method of gardening reduces the amount of “tilling” to the bare minimum (11% of the area) and makes it pretty easy to plant many thousands of square feet in a day. Any weeds that poke through simply get added to the ballast. Over the summer I keep adding grass cuttings to the ballast until all that’s visible is a mat of dried grass covered with squash vines, with corn and beans rising above. This mulch composts so that by the following spring, all but any woody stems have been reduced to humus by thousands of worms. The second year even the stems are gone. If weeds start growing where humus collects on top of the cover, simply pick up the whole mat held together by roots and turn it upside down. With no connection to moisture, they dry up in a day or two.

When I harvest corn, I cut the stalks into six to eight inch lengths and add them to the ballast. I leave two inches of the stalk sticking above the soil. Keeping the pieces moist all winter helps them compost and the nubs sticking above the soil mark where corn grew. By spring there is no trace of the squash so you simply plant the squash where the corn nubs are. Here’s what month-old plants look like today:  http://screencast.com/t/YjYwNmU0Y . But there is no reason not to plant any crop with this method. We’re growing tomatoes, basil and peppers in last year’s three sisters garden which is why I expanded our garden this year. Here are some tomatoes and peppers growing below three sisters:  http://screencast.com/t/ODZjZGVjZ A year or two later there will be no live weed material under the cover and the planting holes can be made any size for placing onions, salad greens and other vegetables that are easier to plant in rows.

It’s not too late to convert a tangle of weeds into productive garden space that will grow more food than you can eat. Our goal this year is to give away more than a ton of vegetables to neighbors and food pantries.

Spring is wonderful: ever longer hours to garden and do things outdoors. Even spending 8 hours indoors developing equipment and keyboarding, leaves almost 8 hours of light to mow, fix fences, weed, dig, and plant.

One neat trick I’ve found that insures that the planting progress proceeds is to soak a variety of seeds in small containers (I use plastic cups that yoghurt comes in) for a day, then wash and drain them twice a day until they sprout, or until they don’t. I save lots of varieties of seeds and when they get older, fewer and fewer sprout, until usually year four or five, none do. By pre-sprouting seeds you can see how many are viable within a few days. Because nights are usually cool and it take quite awhile for leaves to show, planting seeds in soil may take a few weeks before you know just how many plants you have. It’s easy to get properly spaced, or the chosen number in a hill, of beans, corn and squash for a three sisters garden. This process also works well for other large seeds like peas, cucumbers and melons. Another benefit: incentive! As roots grow longer in the pile of seeds, you want to plant them before untangling them becomes a chore with the risk of breaking roots. Because my fingers are typically covered in soil while planting, I like to shake the container of sprouted seeds into holes or rows and not pick out individual seeds, getting the rest all dirty. When the roots grow too long, this shaking routine no longer works!

This past week we had a few severe frosts that set back many varieties, especially the grapes and asparagus. I never heard anyone covering asparagus to protect them from freezing but any spear that was showing is now shriveled up, or rotting. No frost tender transplants were yet outdoors, so our gardens are doing fine. Onions, garlic, greens and radishes don’t seem to mind getting frosted, although many broccoli leaves look burnt but seem to be growing. The cold temperatures did allow me to cut the trees around the bee hive without them bothering me. These trees and some others, in addition to supplying firewood, also provide tomato stakes. We like to train tomatoes to grow up on structures so they are easy to pick, and the fruits don’t get damaged like they often do when on the ground. This year we need at least 100 new stakes because the wire cages made of concrete reinforcing mesh that we typically use we’ll use this year for pole beans so we don’t have to move them. Because we grew tomatoes on them last year, we’d have to move them to use them again for tomatoes again this year.

On days that the sun shines brightly it important to periodically water seedlings in a greenhouse. As the plants grow, the larger sets of leaves transpire lots of water so that plants wilt if watered only once a day. Another incentive program: get the largest plants into the ground so you don’t have to water them! Many of my tomato and tomatillo plants are now well over a foot tall and should be watered three times on sunny days. Eggplants and peppers the same age are only two to four inches tall and need water only once a day.

Shoots of our non-native nut trees were severely damaged by the late frosts: heart nut, hazel nut, and English walnuts, and even our native chestnuts and hickory have many dead shoots. It’s too early to tell if the actual nut crop was damaged.  Many berries including black, rasp, mull, and blue were also nipped. The currents, champagne, red and black, and gooseberries look okay. Berries and grapes supply most of our beverages, jams and jellies and we’ll really miss them if they don’t come through.  Apple blossoms came and went before the heavy frosts and maybe their fruit will make it. Hope you are all have a better spring, at least in terms of cold weather, than we’ve had.

Sixty years and still delivering: Our electric stove, lathe, drill press and our well, with a jet at the bottom. Our freezer, refrigerator, sewing machine, microwave, and tractor are going strong after 30 years. Only our freezer, drill press and sewing machine have not needed attention. I upgraded the elements and controls on the stove, replaced the well pump, back flushed the jet, and fixed the lathe, refrigerator, microwave and tractor but a few dollars in parts have kept them running like new. As I develop new solar equipment I like to keep in mind these proven items and try to avoid shortcomings of others not in this list: vehicles, engines driven equipment and entertainment equipment that don’t last long or have other regrets.

When my grandparents were young, they walked, biked and rode in horse drawn carriages, streetcars and trains to get around. Indoor plumbing, central heat, electric lights and cars were rare. My parents saw these become ordinary and I remember my mom being very happy to leave our rental with an outhouse and move into her own home with two indoor toilets (that still flush 60 years later). Three generations experienced the wonderful transition from animal and manual labor to engines and electric motors doing most hard work. My baby boom generation expects clothes driers and dishwashers, microwave ovens and computers, and we fly across continents and oceans without a second thought. Two generations from now, petroleum and coal that provide our transportation and electricity will be gone or their use restricted. Although we are well aware this is happening, we’re not focusing on the tools we’ll need for living well without burning fossil fuels. We burn fossils like there will b no reckoning and subsidize solar equipment that has no future. Big Energy does not want solar equipment that is as easy to use as the underground deposits of stored solar energy. But future energy systems should become even easier to use, universally available, less expensive and certainly less damaging than what fossil purveyors now sell us. And run well when they are 60 years old.

The only available renewable energy equipment that can compete, without subsidies, in our fossil fueled infrastructure that I’m aware of, and then only for those without access to a utility grid, are PV panels and related equipment. Even though current PV is inefficient, it’s better than running a generator that is noisy, requires trip after trip for fuel, needs lots of attention and wears out quickly. If our national budget had a surplus, creating real jobs making and installing inefficient solar equipment where a grid is available might make some sense. But there are better things to do with the money we have to borrow from our future.

Passive solar overhangs that let sunshine in during cool months and shade in summer make sense as do incorporating thermal mass so space warms up slowly and stays comfortable for a long time. Windows and skylights provide light and fresh air. Smartly designed buildings are very comfortable with minimal conditioning equipment. Since many of us live in homes and work in buildings that were built without considering energy, it’s up to us to minimize the energy we have to purchase for comfort and light. Proper insulation (ceiling, walls and foundation), managing infiltration, adding skylights and overhangs, improving windows and doors, incorporating thermal mass and wearing appropriate clothing all help conserve energy, fossil or renewable. Investing in passive techniques that harness natural energy flows year after year without attention is better than paying for any kind of energy.

Supplementing a clothes drier with a clothesline, seeing how few minutes the hot water heater can be turned on (we have ours on for 10 minutes for showers on weekdays, and only a few minutes on weekends if a load of laundry requires warm water). From burning 1,000 gallons of fuel oil per year it now takes us three years to burn 250 gallons. We’re working on getting that number to zero. My brother, who lives nearby, cut his natural gas use by half through adding ceiling insulation, high performance windows, a condensing furnace and a programmable thermostat. We both close off rooms we are not using.

So, when you’ve reduced how much energy it takes to make your home comfortable, it’s time to look into ways of providing the energy that natural energy flows can’t supply. Some might consider a heat pump powered by electricity because it can come from remote large wind or water turbines. Our utility generates power at Niagara Falls and can transport power from wind power projects but since we have space, we’d rather let others who do not have room for solar collectors take credit for those sources of renewable energy. We live on a hill surrounded by open fields, an ideal place for a wind turbine. After talking to folks who have lived with their own wind turbines, listening to how much noise they make when it’s really blustery and hearing of a few fatalities of careful people falling off towers during storms when this kind of equipment typically fails, we no longer consider using wind as our energy resource. So we consider solar equipment our primary future option. In the meantime, we burn wood.

Seven of eight photovoltaic, PV, panels that we purchased more than 20 years ago still work. The passive solar tracker they’re mounted on has seized up but the array, facing south, still works, as it would on a roof or other static structure. A solar thermal collector might deliver heat for a long time also but the problem with both is the amount of materials it takes to make them and how much useful energy they make available. It takes typical PV and thermal panels years to replace the energy invested in the materials, manufacturing and shipping so in 25 years they return less than 10 times the energy invested. This means they have an energy profit less than 10. Where there’s lots of sun, point-focus solar collectors that track the sun using two motions can harvest more solar energy than any other and might have energy profits of more than 50, and perhaps more than 75. So we have to develop affordable new energy systems that are simple, can harvest and homeowners use not 12% but 80% of the sunlight and work more than 60 years without much attention. How they should be able to do this I’ll get into over the next months.

Spring weather has been really great and the peas, lettuce, greens, potatoes, onions and four flats of seedling vegetables are reaching for sun. We’re already giving away pounds of asparagus to neighbors because after eating them every day this week we want something else. We’ve tried freezing them but didn’t like the results, except in soup. I’ve collected the grass clippings off four acres and used the tons for mulch, four inches deep on 20% of our acre garden, so far. It’s really worm food. Most of the dried grass disappears and has to be replaced a few times over the summer. This mulch almost eliminates weeds. Another benefit is that it takes only a few minutes to uncover a container of worms for fishing. We have over 300 tomato plants, 19 varieties that now range from 4 to 10 inches tall. I’ll start planting them next week. Peppers grow much more slowly and our 8 varieties and over 250 plants will go out later this month along with the eggplants and flowers.

Mirrors shining on power towers or miles of pipes in thermos bottles not only waste resources but also waste time. They look impressive and deliver electricity without dumping greenhouse gases but are a façade that give the impression we’re moving in the right direction. Solar power plants and $60,000 PV arrays on homes do reduce our need for electricity produced by burning coal, natural gas and nuclear fuel, so what is wrong?

Where I live such a PV array can deliver only 30% of the electricity I use. And since electricity is about 30% of my total household energy budget, a $60,000 system would address about 4% of my total carbon footprint. When we install large solar plants in deserts, which have more sunlight than cities, we hope to solve both peak oil and climate issues. But they do not. Those projects are way too expensive and, like PV panels, we actually use less than 14% of the sunlight. But PV panels can use much less material, and less labor, yet deliver the same electricity. Adding storage makes desert power plants even less efficient. Neither delivers any heat, or cooling.

Simply inviting solar thermal power stations into our communities and utilizing much more of the sunlight could more than double the performance of power plants that generate power with steam. Why should taxpayers pay $Millions to build inefficient and ineffective solar power plants in deserts? Big Energy makes money burning fossils in large plants and bureaucrats support only this “business as usual” approach. And future generations will have to pay these $billion bills.

Let’s consider some numbers. Solar 2 demonstrated solar power tower technology and annually delivered 7.9% of the sunlight as electricity. Similar projects soon hope to get this conversion efficiency to 13.7%, see: http://www.nrel.gov/csp/pdfs/34440.pdf .  Solar parabolic trough power plants have many more years of experience and the Solar Electric Generating Station VI annually converts 10.7% of the solar energy to electricity. Future solar power tower and trough projects hope to get conversion efficiencies to above 14%, see:http://www.solarpaces.org/CSP_Technology/docs/solar_trough.pdfand the 34440 article above. Making power in remote deserts and transmitting this clean electricity loses around 7.2% (in 1995) in transformers and power lines, see:http://climatetechnology.gov/library/2003/tech-options/tech-options-1-3-2.pdf diminishing desert solar effectiveness targets from 15% to 14%. These solar power stations generate steam and use turbines the same way as coal burning power plants. Every day, a typical fossil plant needs to burn 110 cars filled with coal. No one wants to live near plants that handle coal and spew mercury, ash particles and greenhouse gases. But trains don’t bring sunlight and solar power plants have no emissions, can be absolutely quiet, and can shade parking lots – so why not foster them in communities?

Power plants dump heat. Solar power plants convert about a third of the energy in steam into electricity and need cooling towers in much the same way as vehicles use radiators to get rid of their “waste” heat. But if an appropriately sized plant were near a hospital, government buildings, a mall, or condominiums, this solar energy could heat water and space and, using absorption air conditioning equipment common in large facilities, provide cooling.

Last week I mentioned a solar collector that had 1,000 square foot mirrors as the front end of a personal energy system. Although this 36 foot diameter dish is the size of a small roof, it would deliver enough power and heat to make a significant dent in the carbon footprints of farmhouses, rural homes, businesses and others with large backyards or room. They have to follow the sun from east to west so only very small ones can be on roofs.

A plug in hybrid electric car will diminish responsibility for oil spills (or ocean oil platform mishaps) but will require electricity. Though cheaper than gasoline, coal-fired power costs thousands of “black lung” deaths and otherwise injured miners and does not make the electric transportation option any better. But solar power can. Any area of concentrating mirrors can intensify sunlight 1,000 times so that smaller dishes say 20 feet in diameter delivering 7 kilowatts in full sun, may fit in some neighborhoods. On the other hand, since it takes a similar effort for site work and to make parts, much larger dishes, say 100 feet in diameter (175 kWe) would be most cost effective for those who use a lot of power, heat and cooling. One almost this large was built in Australia last summer, see: http://solar-thermal.anu.edu.au/2009/12/500-m²-dish-construction-highlights/

Before looking seriously at what it will take to replace the energy we get burning fossils, we should look at our carbon footprint and identify ways to live well that require less energy.

We should be able to buy solar equipment for $1 a watt that harvests 80% of the sunlight available. Big Energy is happy that it costs $7 a watt to install solar panels or solar power plants that deliver less than 15%. Companies make huge profits selling fossil energy year after year. And it’s easy to tax consumers for the fossil energy they use.  Pollution? Climate change?  Future for kids? Those are our problems!

The director of a public library asked me if she should engage an energy service company to install a large array of photovoltaic panels on and around the building. The company offered to finance a $1 million, 144 kilowatt system and bill the library 90% of what the utility would charge for the power solar displaces over 20 years. The library would pay less for electricity and become a billboard for sustainability. I told her that it was a good deal for the library. It’s also great for project designers, management, manufacturers, construction workers and investors. But for our kids, who have to pay back the subsidies involved (probably over $500,000) with interest, it’s not so great.

What about the library’s carbon footprint? There will be less pollution from the coal burning power plant that supplies electricity but it will take three to five years for the PV array to replace the energy embedded in the PV equipment and project construction. This PV array will then deliver clean power for two decades, which is good. But at what cost? Our government supports Big Energy’s fossil exploits through tax incentives, military actions, and overlooking pollution costs so it’s appropriate to subsidize installing renewable energy equipment. My problem is with how bureaucrats foster technologies that will forever require subsidies because they perform poorly. We are not doing what it will take to transition from our past robust economy, fired by cheap fossil fuels, to a vibrant, modest future that slowly replaces more expensive fossil carbon with ever more powerful renewable energy products.

Like personal computers, solar equipment today should be inexpensive and deliver huge value. And should replace the embedded energy in a few months, not three to five years. Today’s solar options are like the government subsidy program that depletes fossil energy to produce an equivalent amount of ethanol from food grade corn, wasting both the fuel and food! Fancy PV panels on roofs convert about 12% of the sunlight that hits them into electricity but, since they don’t move, they deliver rated power around noon, if they are properly tilted toward the equator, and no cell is in a shadow. The same panels on trackers that follow the sun would generate at least 40% more power. But both static and tracking arrays throw away 88% of the solar energy available. These huge investments waste most of the clean energy!

It takes substantial structures to hold the PV panels so storms don’t damage them. The PV modules themselves have frames that protect the edges of the glass on which the PV cells are mounted. It’s easy to reconfigure the same materials into a parabolic dish solar collector that uses glass mirrors to reflect sunlight hitting the large area of mirrors to a small receiver. The ratio of mirror to the active area of the receiver can easily be 1,000 to one. That means 1,000 one foot square mirrors illuminate a square foot of CPV cells that accept concentrated radiation. There are a few varieties of these cells available that convert from 20 to 38% of the sunlight into electric power: much more efficient than those used in common PV panels. CPV cells work best when cool so the cooling fluid is not useful for heating or powering an absorption air conditioner (that uses heat to generate cooling).

Sunlight through a prism has many colors but about half the energy is invisible because it is in the infrared, IR, part of the spectrum. Solar cells can’t utilize IR well but “hot” mirror coatings that reflect IR radiation and transmit light could direct half the energy for another use. High performance solar cells can be mated to secondary concentrator optical elements that reflect IR and distribute the visible radiation to best advantage. With this kind of receiver it would be easier to cool the cells (because the IR energy would not be involved) and the IR energy can be harvested separately in a boiler, at a temperature independent of the CPV module. This means a 1,000 square foot concentrator with a very small receiver (the size of a waste basket) should be able to deliver 20 to 30 kilowatts of electricity, along with enough steam for cooling a small building, making hot water for showers, space, laundry, and for cooking or sterilizing and many other possibilities. One would need readily available auxiliary equipment to handle these additional tasks.

A target cost for such a system? No more than $1 per watt of electricity, no charge for heat. Such a system might cost $20,000 to $30,000 but a “sell” price would probably be higher unless available as a kit. Cost of installation would depend on site characteristics and related permitting and construction costs. Five such units, that one day could be installed for less than a quarter of the above library’s proposed system would deliver more electricity. They would also provide all the cooling and most of the heating (the sun doesn’t shine some weeks in winter). The investment in auxiliaries should be less than the cost to heat and cool for three years. The only part I’m sure of is the tracking concentrator: those parts cost less than half the projected total. Others will have to make the CPV cells, secondary optics and combine them into a receiver module. The boiler portion that in an hour delivers the energy equivalent of burning a gallon of fuel oil (125,000 Btu) in full sun, and insulated steam lines, should cost under $1,000.

In the solar arena, Big Energy and government seem like mainframe computer folks at the dawn of desktop computing: “We are developing all the renewable energy delivery systems you’ll ever need. Trust us. No one will ever want their own personal energy system!”

As I’ll cover next time, very expensive fields of heliostats around power towers and huge fields of parabolic trough collectors in deserts have a hard time exporting more than 15% of the sunlight available. Wasting 85% is “state of the art” but it doesn’t have to be our future.

Off topic: a photo of this year’s forsythia that don’t always flower as nicely, behind some of next year’s wood:  http://screencast.com/t/YTYwOTE5ODI

Pond bubbling equipment has been put away, maple trees are leafing, next year’s firewood is drying, vegetable seedlings are growing and asparagus are shooting up. Spring is progressing nicely!  We made only three pints of maple syrup from our tree this season instead of our usual two or three quarts because the weather turned warm, and rarely went below freezing. Many of our neighbors around upstate New York and Vermont have reported similar low yields. But the warm weather has made collecting firewood a pleasure. I’ve gathered about five cords and have put away three, with one more cord to cut. With three cords left from last year, we already have enough for the coming heating season. I want to cut down the trees that have grown up and now shade our greenhouse without bothering the honey bees that live in this grove. Rather, I don’t want them to bother me!  So on the next very cold day I’ll drop everything and finish getting our wood.

Self reliance has rewards and setbacks, but, as long as we’re healthy, fixing things that break is part of living. Here are a few things on my list:

• This winter heavy snows and ice collapsed one edge of the long bridge that crosses one end of our pond. The fasteners that sheared off on one side will have to be replaced. It will take warm weather, and a warm pond, before it will be fun to figure out how to jack up the 16 sections and put in bolts instead of screws.
• The tractor’s cooling system leaks so I have to add a quart or two of water/antifreeze before heading out. It looks like the seal on the water pump needs replacing so that shouldn’t take too long.
• Heavy snows knocked down most of the deer fences around one of our gardens, but they still do their job. Making them presentable, though, and good for peas to climb, will require some effort.
• The outlet to our gray water system froze a few times this past winter and will need an insulated structure before next winter built to allow the sinks, showers and laundry to function well.
• The axes and mauls I use for working wood need new handles. I replaced one last night by carving the replacement fiberglass core, polypropylene sheathed one so it fit into the head and then filling the gaps with epoxy. To prevent the runny mixture from leaking out, I used hot melt adhesive around the base and it worked well.
• Our well water pump leaks in air so it needs work. I’ve run the wires so that our photovoltaic system can run the pump but I have to dig down through seven feet of fill to repair the pipe, and at the same time build a conduit to lead away water that flows through the basement. We had a great drainage system that a very large willow was happy to use as its water supply and has now filled all the four inch diameter pipes with roots. But it gives us wonderful shade and attracts lots of interesting birds.

In 1985 (I just checked the date written in the concrete foundation) we put up a polar column to support one end of a large tracking solar collector. Government officials didn’t want us building this government funded effort in our backyard, so they had us put it up at their facility, more than 2,000 miles away.  This 80 foot tall open lattice tower, just south of our greenhouse, attracts lots of birds who dropped seeds and now a variety of trees grow under and around the tower. Over the years, these primarily wild cherry trees shade the greenhouse through the middle of the day – so it doesn’t overheat. But it also diminishes how much food we can grow. It’s fine where there are no leaves on the trees, but not good when leaves provide too much shade. Many of these trees have trunks over six inches in diameter and will make great firewood. The branches make good structures for tomatoes and beans to climb up.

In 1987 we erected the hybrid solar power system in the southwest and tested it the following year. It delivered around 45 kilowatts of electric power and utilized sunlight alone or burned fuel oil in a boiler to supplement the sun.  It was the first large two axes tracking solar collector ever built, and is still the largest put up in the western hemisphere. This first prototype did have its share of problems with both the collector, the steam engine and the fossil fueled boiler but after working through these, the system operated as designed. Our plans for building less expensive and much more powerful equipment never got off the ground because bureaucrats chose to fund only parabolic dishes that were mated to Stirling engines. Our more than thirty submissions (requiring many hours of work, each) to government programs were turned down. That would have been justified if alternative program succeeded making better equipment but that never happened.

Over the next weeks I plan to cover some topics like solar technologies, EROEI (energy returned on energy invested – or energy profit ratio) and how we may have to approach living so more people can live well, especially as fossil fuels become depleted. Probably only folks who live off-grid would purchase solar power systems. Very few others would invest in solar technologies without substantial government subsidies. That’s because PV panels, thermal collectors, parabolic trough and central receiver solar power systems are expensive and perform poorly relative to better solar options and those that use highly concentrated fuels sequestered underground. Big Energy likes it this way because they benefit by our burning what they provide today. Why conserve for our grandkids?  At some point, people will realize that living a good life today does not have to diminish living in the future. Personal energy systems can empower individuals similar to how desk and laptop computing did.

Next time I’ll describe different solar options available for homes, and for power plants along with some of their characteristics.

Our greenhouse is our most productive garden. We harvest produce every month of the year and raise a few thousand seedlings there until they are ready to set outdoors. It’s fairly large, 20 by 50 feet, attached to the south side of a passive solar heated building that also receives heat only from sunlight. It has only a single pitch of glazing that we recently raised its peak from 12 to 16 feet because it wasn’t steep enough to shed snow. If snow builds up on the glazing, it’s dark inside and would go below freezing for parts of three months. We live in the northeast about 150 miles from Canada and outdoor temperatures often go well below zero. Now that it efficiently sheds snow, it only approaches freezing during December and January, and the first week, or so, of February.  It’s glazed with a triple wall polycarbonate product, 4 by 20 foot sheets, which has worked very well for over 20 years and still has some life left. We had to turn it upside down two years ago because large hail popped 20 or 30 holes in each of the 12 sheets that prevented the snow from sliding off what is now the bottom. See photo:  http://screencast.com/t/OGIzODQ4MjUt

The secret of successful passively heated buildings is thermal storage that works. You don’t want space to get too hot in summer, and you want it to stay warm through long nights in winter. We’ve put 26 of water-filled tanks, each holding about 50 gallons, along the north side of the greenhouse, with a few each on the east and west sides that start out as clear one foot diameter tubes, 10 feet high. It doesn’t take long for them to grow algae so they soon take on hues of green and yellow. We also have a large, open tank of the same material that holds 500 gallons that we use for watering.  We started out with a lot fewer tanks of water and kept adding more until we ran out of room. It’s working pretty well with it never going below freezing at ground level from early February into December. We harvested our last peppers and tomatoes just before the holidays this past year. See photo: http://screencast.com/t/ZjlkNjdjM2

Ventilation in a greenhouse is also very important. We keep the entrance door in the west wall open most days, starting in March, and never close it from April until October, unless outdoor temperatures go below freezing. We have a large vent with a 12 foot long, by four foot wide opening at the peak of the greenhouse that we keep open from May through September. The constant breeze where we live (on a hill) prevents it from ever getting too hot inside.

One has to water inside every day that there is sun – and even on some cloudy days if plants start to droop. I’ve tried different approaches for doing this automatically, with timers, but the water we use that comes directly from our pond quickly clogs filters, leaky hose and sprayers. I’ve found it easier to water by hand with hose that sprays, and clean it when required. The ten minutes it takes to water all the beds allows me to check how everything is doing and an opportunity to harvest dinner.

Getting the correct mix of plants growing is a challenge. Many plants, like kale, Swiss chard, arugula, oregano, thyme, parsley and other herbs grow year round and only rarely have to be replaced. We grow biennials in order for them to produce seeds the second year for planting outdoors: beets, cabbage, and carrots. We always have Asian greens and salad crops growing year round and these seem to do well even except maybe the coldest weeks, but they sprout new leaves when it warms up. When blight killed all our tomatoes before producing any for canning, our eight greenhouse tomato plants kept us with plenty for sandwiches and salads from June into December. Our eight each pepper and cucumber plants also produced more fruit over eight months than dozens more did outdoors this past year but would not under better conditions.

One of the neatest greenhouse activities? A wading pool for kids. Any sunny day, even in December or January, a shallow pool can get up to 80 degrees and splashing water can’t hurt anything in a greenhouse. A hot tub would be another possibility that we’ve never had time to investigate. But it could easily be heated with sunlight and help keep plants from freezing.

Other benefits? It’s a great place to work in when it’s cold, windy or raining outside. There’s plenty of light during the day and it’s remarkable how warm it gets even in January when the sun shines. It’s also great for drying seeds, gourds, small amounts of wood for tool handles, woodworking, and making baskets. Our greenhouse has 11 open webbed aluminum trusses that have lots of opportunities for hanging things. An open lattice tower is suspended on its side and is now holding 25 flats of growing plants. Within a month, at least that many more will be strewn about every open surface, including paths, until they get planted in outdoor gardens. In the photo above, tomatoes are growing through this open “bench”.

A greenhouse is also a great place for snakes to hibernate. Since our greenhouse glazing is low on the east side, the beds on that side have up to three and a half feet of wall so you can walk between them without bumping your head on the trusses. Snakes like to hide there and come out when it’s sunny. Although they keep the larger insects and slugs at bay, I have to spray soapy water to keep aphids at bay a few times in spring until the lady beetles take over.

Downsides? The slope of our glazing runs into a raised bed that helps insulate the south wall. Deep snow piles up there and must be shoveled away to make room for more snow to slide down the glazing. I had to do this only twice this past season. Also, you have to keep trapping rodents because they quickly learn that there is always food available. We use live traps so we don’t hurt any of our snakes. You also have to catch any larger critters like opossums and raccoons  if they learn that there is usually food through the open door. Adding a screen door blocks too much air but a door made out of fencing would work – if it comes to that.

Top 10 Tools for Working Wood

This is not about making furniture but about tools for putting away enough wood to last another year. Tools promote philosophical values so my set of tools require exercise, minimize fossil carbon use, and offer opportunities to day dream and think. Carting home many tons of wood takes time but is quite enjoyable when spring is breaking, peepers are chirping, and plants are budding. Much available wood falls in swamps where tractors can’t go. It has to be cut up into portable pieces. A huge oak tree fell down last year and we’ve burned all but the three foot diameter trunk. This spring’s project has been cutting it into 14 inch wide wheels and rolling them the few hundred feet to a field where the tractor and trailer can go without sinking. The sections that have a fork don’t roll and have to be split into pieces that can be portaged. There’s time to think and listen between trips so I’d rather work wood than jog on a highway. So here are ten firewood tools in order of increasing importance:

10. Gas Burning Chainsaw: probably the most powerful tool for working wood ever invented. They come in many sizes but all make noise, typically lots of it. Twenty gallons of gasoline, a quart of oil and a few gallons of bar oil for lubricating the chain that does the cutting enabled two people with a chainsaw to build a cabin in a remote place in six months. It probably would have taken a year with a hand saw, a hammer and a chisel. Making shakes for the roof required a froe, but that’s another story. I hope this will be the last year we have to use this kind of saw where an extension cord doesn’t reach.

9. Diesel Tractor: great for pulling trailer loads of wood weighing up to a ton across wet fields. Each trip replaces up to 30 using a wheelbarrow, a hand cart or pulling limbs along the ground. Depending on conditions, you have to use chains on the front and rear tractors tires and lightly load the trailer to prevent getting stuck in mud – that would take an inappropriate amount of time to remedy.

8. Ax: effectively cuts off branches up to three inches in diameter in a single, diagonal stroke. Also very good at splitting compliant logs cut to stove fuel lengths. The momentum stored as the working end picks up speed can become a problem if it misses its target. I once split my head open when the butt end of an ax caught on a small branch overhead.

7. Folding saw: a hand-saw that has a handle as long as the blade that protects the very sharp teeth (and your skin) when closed upon itself. The blade is thicker than the one used in a bow saw so it doesn’t bend when pushing it forward for another cutting stroke. They are great for trimming larger branches on trees because they are light, quiet and very effective, even when you have to prune fruit trees while perched high in a tree. Bow saws are too clumsy for this work. On long distance hikes I bring a very small version for cutting firewood.

6. Hatchet: great for splitting straight-grained wood for kindling. Also an appropriate tool for quickly removing small branches from downed trees. Inappropriate for pruning. Never put your other hand anywhere near the chopping block – my uncle lost a thumb while splitting wood for kindling.

5. Electric Tractor: a developing resource. We can charge our electric tractors using sunlight but do not yet have a matching trailer appropriate for hauling wood. We also need an inverter that converts the 36 volts battery bank into AC for running an electric chainsaw.

4. Electric Chainsaw: a less powerful version of the gas burning variety. We reduce long lengths of wood carted to our woodshed to appropriate lengths with two sizes of these quieter tools. They use the same bar oil and set of files that the gas powered version require. Every day you cut wood you need to sharpen the chain links that do the cutting using a round file. Every five days of cutting you use a small flat file to shorten the tang that establishes the depth of cut so that it makes shavings and not sawdust.

3. Lopper: a limb cutter that has two long handles. Nothing cuts brush as well as a lopper. Capturing a limb between the blade and anvil portion doesn’t allow it to move away. The long handles allow reaching into thickets, including ones with thorns like rose and blackberry brambles, without sacrificing too much blood. It’s best to clear limbs and brush away from trunks or downed limbs before using a chainsaw. It’s tempting to use a chainsaw for clearing small branches but these can easily get pulled into the guard, deflect the blade, or trap it requiring potentially dangerous recovery measures. It’s safest to use chainsaws only for cutting larger diameter stock and use more controllable hand tools for the small stuff.

2. Maul and Wedges:  use the sharp end of the maul for splitting wood directly and the other for pounding in wedges that can split even the most ornery pieces. You need at least two wedges because some wood, usually with large knots can completely bury a wedge without splitting apart. Using a second wedge, and even a third, to open up cracks emanating from the first usually frees them all. There have been a few elm chunks, though, where only judicious use of a saw released the wedge.

1. Bow Saw: a thin wood-cutting blade pulled taught by a frame forming a “Dee”. Like a hacksaw, tension on the blade permits using a skinny strip of steel to minimize kerf, the amount of wood removed to allow the blade to cut the log or branch. The teeth are slightly bent alternately left and right so that they remove enough wood so the rest of the blade doesn’t rub the sides of the cut. If the opening starts to close, it’s time to remove the saw and start cutting from the other side. If you had only one tool for processing wood, a bow saw would be ideal. It doesn’t use many resources, except elbow grease, and cuts quickly, without requiring undo effort. You would be limited to branches that can fit inside the stove without splitting – but these are the easiest to cut and carry. The blades are hardened and stay sharp for a very long time. And you don’t need hearing protection.