Woodstove livin in a Heatpump world.

[DavidV]

It's a wide range of people who use wood heat. I have the stove burning right now. And "alternative heat" users run everything from pellet stoves, to outdoor boilers, to old school pre EPA wood burners. But for some of us, it's part of a bigger picture.
My questin is two fold what else do you do that's as outside the mainstream as heating with wood. And how often do you find your aspirations at odds with the rest of the world?
I cut my own wood.. We compost and reuse it, mulch the leaves and dump them in the mulch beds (less waste). I hunt, do most of my own repairs around the house. ..not that far out of the norm I think...I would be happier with a more rural lifestyle..but I'm not the only person living in my house. We'd grow vegetables, but just don't have the space...we do have wild blackberries growing next the driveway and get 2-3 good harvests each year which my wife uses to make Jam.
I don't water the lawn....mostly because I don't want to have to mow it, but also because it seems kind of wasteful.....even though I do have a pool full of water in the back. But I hardly ever have to add any water to it. Rain takes care of most of that.

David

 

[seaken]

David,

my view of what is normal has changed a lot over the years. I was brought up in a home that was somewhat seperatist in it's approach to the world. Yet I was always accepted as a normal member of the community by those that I was taught were less worthy than we were. So it's no surprise to me to see all kinds of people here in my region who run the gammut from tree-hugging naturalists vegetarians all the way to live-to-excess real estate moguls. Most are somewhere in between but I have yet to determine what is normal around here. It is decidedly different than, say, the midwest states of Ohio or Indiana, where there is an expected norm in most communities. We buy many of the things we sell in our store from the Amish and Menonite people who shun the modern technology of this world and are not considered normal by most folks. Many of them use wood stoves for heat and horses for work. Many of our affluent customers have interests, in addition to wood stoves, in alternate forms of energy such as solar and battery banks, and off-line generators.

We used to have a garden and we composted, split our own wood, and repaired our own clothes. Now we don't have time for a garden, don't compost, and buy our wood already split and buy all our clothes from the likes of JC Penny and Filenes, etc. We work 60 to 80 hours per week and barely keep up with the laundry and home repairs. I am looking to hire out some simple repair work on the house because I have the money to pay for it but no time. Is that normal? I think many would say that is normal.

But I also would opt for simpler lifestyle if it were just me. I was raised in a poor family and can get along with very little. But I choose to live the "normal" life as part of this family. And while we have enough money to pay for the normal lifestyle we lack what it would take to live a truly "alternative" lifestyle where we raised our own food, made our own clothes and burned only wood stoves or used solar and wind for energy. That would require a deep commitment and supportive community, not unlike the Amish.

I think most of us choose to be "normal" because it's just too much trouble to be "alternative". But these days we can pick and choose where we want to be alternative and it's still quite normal, right? I don't think most people consider wood stoves and chopping our own wood as "alternative" these days, especially in rural areas . Even solar and wind are less "alternative" than they once were. But they are also only realistic for the wealthy or technically minded.

I also do not water my lawn. And if it were up to me I wouldn't have a "lawn" at all. But it seems to be forced upon us that we must mow the lawn to be socially acceptable. Yet I live in the forest where I think it is perfectly normal to let nature take it's course on the lawn. The lawn is there because it was expediant when covering the septic. If I had the time and money I'd do more with a rockery and alternative ground covering. Then everybody on my road would say "what a freak!". [grin]

Sean

 

[begreen]

Sean,

I came across this posting last night. It's one of the nicest summations of life around the stove that I have read. You might enjoy the soliloqy posted at this blog. Here is a quote:

"As we grew into our new southwest Virginia lifestyle and became comfortable with the rhythms of the heating year, I began to appreciate that ‘hearth and home’ are words that do truly belong together. When the cold winds whistled over the roof and the windows glazed with ice, family life was centered around that black box with the kettle hissing on top. The kids sprawled on the floor beside it and played dominoes. Ann sat in the high-backed chair with cross-stitch in her lap while I read or played the guitar in the warmth of wood we’d gathered from our own hillsides."

(broken link removed)

 

[elkimmeg]

About 30 years ago I built my own home and moved into a small working class town, Lots of woods and few people
Then came RT 495 things started to change, my town became very desirable for its rural nature.
The town has doubled since then and the working class is now the minority. I have always done all home and auto repairs, harvested the garden. I hate to see our town water supply become an irrigation system. What gaulls me is to see the automatic sprinklers running in a driving rain storm. Actually it is easier to obtain wood now, nobody wants to put in the time to process it. I can go to the local DPW brush pile and load my PK truck every Saturday. At one time I had a tremendous run building homes where I had money.
The market correction of 2000 in technology took a fair share, the rest Cornell, Wheaton, and Villanova claimed. I think you both explained how I too live. I mow the lawn only when needed and never water it

 

[drizler]

Why on earth would anyone want to water the lawn? I put that right up there with dumping 200 lbs of fertilizer on every year . We have all our trees and bushes in large round beds so I can mow the whole thing with a 5 foot mower deck behind my 57 year old tractor and no more than necessary. I have lots more important things to do with my time. Not much point in making the place a showcase anyways because unless you are in a Cessna you can't even locate my house. I couldn't imagine living in one of those places where you smell your neighbors dinner cooking with the cookie cutter lawns and the competition for who has the newest car.

 

[DriftWood]

When I took up sailing wind and water came together, moving across both in silent free pleasure. 40 years later I can still see the way the wind on the water changed that day. You could try sailing.

 

[hilly]

I too live a bit of an alternative lifestyle. I heat with wood that I scrounge for free (Unless getting wood from your relatives isn't considered scrounging), I try to ride my bike to work regularly (about 10 miles I think...uphill, both ways), I have some chickens that occasionally justify their existence by laying the odd egg now and again and I don't have a tv.

I'm also very fortunate because, as a teacher, I get a couple of months off in the summer time and that gives me time to maintain the house, hike and keep the garden somewhat weed free. Of all the things I do though, the students (I teach high school) are blown away when I tell them I don't have a tv. I guess it's just such a part of life now it would be similar to saying that I don't eat.

 

[wg_bent]

I make my own furniture and brew my own beer.

 

[laynes69]

I'm 25 living in the home I was raised in as a child. I am the third generation owner of the property. I do all of my repairs and renovations. We have 5 acres that I take care of. It supplies our wood and this year I may start bailing some hay for a little extra money. We have multiple cherry trees which my wife cans and bakes with. We pick raspberries and blackberries and she cans and bakes with also. We can alot of food from the garden. We water our garden with the cistern that we have. People wonder why we have what we have and its all about how you live. We have a nice mini farm, but we don't need to do the things that younger people do. Its all about the family, with our 2 boys they love it out here. We don't have neighbors, and are surrounded by farmland and woods. Life is what you make of it.

 

[BrotherBart]

"I may not be 'normal', but nobody is."

-- Willie Nelson

 

[Rhone]

Where I live lawns are rare or unkept. I'm currently rejuvinating the soil. Last spring I chose to grow field peas (legumes) and produce a large biomass (but don't fair well in shade or poor soil), hairy vetch (it too is a legume, has an amazing root system that helps improve the soil, grows in the worst soil and shade, but can't plant them too thick their vast root system will deny other plants nutrients and water, and must be destroyed before setting seed), and oats (which has the most biomass of the lot but grown more for the peas & vetch to climb being vines). In late summer the crop was about 2' high in the worst soil, 3' in the average, and 4' in the good. God bless my wife, in late summer when the vetch was starting to flower she wanted the task of mowing down the crop with a beat up mower and she did it! You have to mow first else the stuff gets tangled in the tiller blades. After she was done, it all turned into about a 1" layer of shredded organic matter that smelled like fresh green peas. The top is only a small part of the magic, most organic matter and magic was in the dirt. Tilling it under, the difference was amazing. Tthe dirt was much better than it was prior. Not knowing what I wanted to do afterward, knowing I didn't want a lawn, and knowing I have to grow something my gains are leaching away I decided I'd grow a winter crop of Rye and Annual Rye (their root system can grow up to a mile a day), crimson clover (it's the fastest growing clover a good choice for fall planting, their tap root breaks apart soil and it's a legume), some more field peas (which die in winter but also protect the soil), and some more hairy vetch. The improvement from the first crop and the legumes was evident as this next batch grew up twice as thick and taller like it was on steriods. It's died back over this winter, and I look to have about a 2" layer of organic matter I'll be tilling under in spring, along with around 600 lbs of worm castings, and probably four 5 gallon buckets of wood ash. I've decided to grow only perreniels and herbs, I've never liked the lawn. I included a picture of my front yard as it looked about half way before I mowed it all in, doesn't it look nice and juicy! That area in particular is where weeds had trouble growing and why I took it.

For fun, I work on the design of my compost pile, still trying to figure out how to compost wood chips effectively and also experiment on my design for a compost bin you don't have to turn. I avoid fertilizer at all costs unless it's the Ringer brand which is all organic and looks much like rabbit feed. May actually be rabbit feed in fact.

 

[burntime]

I do my own repairs, grow my own vegetables from seed in the greenhouse, scrounge for wood, split and stack all of it, and I am not the normal in my area. We have 2 incomes and can afford to put on the heat...it just is not home without the flicker of the fire going. If that makes me not normal so be it...but let me tell you, and I am sure a lot of others here will agree, when people come over they don't complain about the fire...they huddle arround it and my home is thier home. Normal, no. Admired at times, yes.

 

[slowzuki]

Well, of what isn't mainstream for me? I drive old vehicles, I built my own sawmill and built my own house, I hay, I do my own logging and fire wood (aside from my neighbour giving me his old fungus stuff) I do my own plumbing, got my septic contractor license to do my septic tank, did my own house wiring.

Oh, and my "real" job is 30 hours a week, negotiated down by me, because it gets in the way of my preferred jobs.

 

[bruce56bb]

um.......i burn wood and drink the cheap whiskey. does that count?

edit....and i haven't updated my golf clubs for several years.