meanwhile, in Alaska

Eric wrote:

I hate splitting wood.  I want me one of these.  It doesn't matter that I have no place to put it...

Ha! That's pretty cool! Leave it to the Fins, eh??

It's called Rocky Mountain Express.. There is a 30 second or so trailer of it on the web site for the museum.. National Naval Aviation Museum..

Split wood burns hotter, maybe because it is a bunch of smaller pieces and has some sharp edges that ignite easier. Getting much larger unsplit pieces are sometimes a pain getting them to fit into a wood stove, too.

Unsplit wood does burn longer. We call them all-nighters.

My measly half-chord pales in comparison to your five cords, Ricey. Woohoo!

I sometimes cut 12-16" diameter logs about 4" thick and burn the round pieces instead of splitting them.. They last a few hours..

Eric wrote:

Split wood burns hotter, maybe because it is a bunch of smaller pieces and has some sharp edges that ignite easier.  Getting much larger unsplit pieces are sometimes a pain getting them to fit into a wood stove, too.

Unsplit wood does burn longer.  We call them all-nighters.

My measly half-chord pales in comparison to your five cords, Ricey.  Woohoo!

Right, but it largely depends upon what kind of wood it is and also whether or not it's seasoned, how big the rounds are, the wood stove, and the manner in which someone builds a fire. As I've mentioned several times and you may recall, my internal thermostat is out of whack and I am always too hot (story to follow), so the big rounds work well for me. The woodstove in the little cabin (the one I live in) is huge -- you can *easily* fit 25" logs into it -- and cranks down so tight that a fire lasts two days if you leave it cranked-down and don't open the doors. All the other woodstoves I've used & lived with took 22" logs.

My cousin's wife and the wife of his buddy that went woodcutting with us yesterday kept going on about how I was going to freeze my ass off. So, upon my cousin's wife, Deb's suggestion I wore 2 pair of long johns (one thin pair, one expedition-weight), a cotton turtleneck, a longsleeve wool t-shirt, a pair of thin wool "liner" socks, a pair of medium-weight wool socks and a SUPER thick pair of wool socks, expedition-weight bib overalls, a Carhartt vest with an Arctic-weight Carhart coat over it, and a pair of bunny boots (the only kind of boots that will keep your feet warm & dry in Alaska). Oh, and a wool beanie.

Within 15-minutes I'd stripped-off the two heavyweight under-layers, all the expedition & Arctic weight gear and my vest, two layers of socks and my beanie. Thank god I always carry work clothes (as well as wool socks & boots) in my pickup, cos I changed into an old pair of holey Carhartt bibs, an insulated cotton hoodie, and a cotton ballcap. I even had to shed the sweatshirt a few times to cool off, lol.

OH! I saw my first THREE different dogsleds yesterday, too! I would have taken pictures to share with you all, but it was literally a blizzard. I could barely see any of our pickups, all three of which are white. I'm sure I'll get better photo ops.

In Pensacola, there is a bushy swamp "tree" that is called a black titi (pronounced "tie-tie").  They grow up to about 5" diameter.  Cut into lengths, they sometimes split by themselves when they cure.  They burn very hot, unfortunately too quickly, but they burn so clean in the fireplace that there is no smoke coming out of the chimney... just mirage-like heat waves.

We used to come in after the pine-tree loggers and cut up all the titi they flatten to access the pine trees.  No sense letting it go to waste.

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Ricey, your stove seems like a dream.  My Buck stove will not accept long wood, and even with the seal on the doors (asbestos?), it doesn't stay lit more than about 12 hours.  And it has to have a load of big stuff to stay lit that long.  Some hot coals last 24 hours or longer, but the stove really isn't "lit".

Is your stove single walled?  Does it put out good heat after a day of being "clamped down"?  We built our first house and installed an old cast iron stove that had two of those removable round plates on top.  We would cook on it sometimes.  It was our only heat and on really cold nights I would throw some coal into it.  That sucker would glow red hot. You can see where the paint was burned off the stovepipe. That was about as high as the "glow" would get.

Eric wrote:

In Pensacola, there is a bushy swamp "tree" that is called a black titi (pronounced "tie-tie").  They grow up to about 5" diameter.  Cut into lengths, they sometimes split by themselves when they cure.  They burn very hot, unfortunately too quickly, but they burn so clean in the fireplace that there is no smoke coming out of the chimney... just mirage-like heat waves.

We used to come in after the pine-tree loggers and cut up all the titi they flatten to access the pine trees.  No sense letting it go to waste.

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Ricey, your stove seems like a dream.  My Buck stove will not accept long wood, and even with the seal on the doors (asbestos?), it doesn't stay lit more than about 12 hours.  And it has to have a load of big stuff to stay lit that long.  Some hot coals last 24 hours or longer, but the stove really isn't "lit".

Is your stove single walled?  Does it put out good heat after a day of being "clamped down"?  We built our first house and installed an old cast iron stove that had two of those removable round plates on top.  We would cook on it sometimes.  It was our only heat and on really cold nights I would throw some coal into it.  That sucker would glow red hot.  You can see where the paint was burned off the stovepipe.  That was about as high as the "glow" would get.

I'd use that titi wood for kindling. Sounds perfect for that. What kind of hardwood do you all have around there?

You are right, those old seals around the doors on wood stoves are made of asbestos... YUM! The little log cabin I lived in for several years back home had an old wood stove with glass windows in the doors, and it had that asbestos crap around the doors. That stove was the only source of heat for that cabin, and it was almost at 6000-ft elevation where the wind blew over 60 mi/hr all the time, and the holes in the chinks were so big you could see daylight through them and the wind -- literally -- blew through them and the windows rattled in the frames. I loved that cabin and living there, but the chinks needed filled and that wood stove was a POS. In the winter, if I built a fire then went to bed or to work, when I woke up or came home the cabin would be 30-degrees inside. No shit. I once electrocuted myself when I had the water running and turned the garbage disposer on then put my hand in the water. Scared the shit out of me!  

The big cabin (my cousin's) has a beautiful wood cook stove in it that is just like my mom's, and he has a little bitty 4-burner stove he's going to put into one of his other homestead cabins he's building off the West Fork of the Chena River. It's an old family heirloom and while it is not efficient, it's very special to both of us. It belonged to his mom who was murdered in 2010 on Christmas Day.

The big wood stove in the little cabin (the one I live in) is double-wall cast iron. That stove is a lot bigger than the one in the big cabin, and it's nicer as well. His mom hauled it up here from Flagstaff years ago. And yes, it does still put out good heat through the second day.

Dang, you all were lucky nothing bad ever happened with that stovepipe getting as hot as it did. That's really dangerous!

Here in Hoover there is mostly oak (don't know the variety... Not live oak like in P'cola), and hickory. There is a particular type of hickory that grows on the uplands around here. They only grow like that in four or five counties here. That's unusual because most hickory (in the Southeast at least) live in wetter, lowland areas.

There is a lot of sweetgum trees too. http://www.carolinanature.com/trees/list.html
Christine calls them spinyball trees. That link has a few pics and maybe the fifth pic down shows a spiny ball. The trees drop hundreds of these things and the seed pods are a real nuisance! Christine stepped on one in the road when she was walking the dogs and twisted her ankle pretty bad.

I have gotten my official welcome to 'Lasky. Super bad storm came through and I got run off the road... had a full load of firewood in the back of my pickup. I was only going about 15 - 20 mi/hr, but I went Slow-Mo through one culvert, up over the road then back into the other side of the culvert. I thought my frame was bent at first, but it doesnt seem to be. I need all new shocks & struts (which I really did anyhow... it was time), it was WAY out of alignment and the bed & rear bumper are f-ed. We have not had power for days now (grateful we have wood stoves... lots of folks here only have deisel heaters... it is 12 below right now), so today I gave it a redneck alignment w/an impact wrench, and did some body work with a sledge-hammer. I'll have it looked at after we get power again and get a proper alignment from someone w/a calibtated torque wrench, but the funny part is that drives a lot better than it did before. go figure.

probqbly won't be able to get back to you all until after we get power again. this is the fiirst I've had my phone working.

Trucks can be fixed. YOU are more important than any ole truck.. I've seen things happen that bend something and they work better than ever.. Stay safe up there Ricey....

In P'cola this weekend.  It is a balmy 68° all night... windows open and ceiling fans running.

Hunker down, Ricey.

Jake92 wrote:

Trucks can be fixed.  YOU are more important than any ole truck..  I've seen things happen that bend something and they work better than ever..  Stay safe up there Ricey....  

I know what you mean, Jake... thanks. we finally got power back last night. i think all of us were starting to get cabin fever, haha, and i feel like about 19-million bucks after getting a shower next door. i have to admit that waking up at 0200 and having to run out to the outhouse to pee when it's 17 below is not on my list of top most awesome things about alaska, haha. i'm sure i'm going to love it when it's 65 below :-o

Hey E, no need to brag about your weather. i'll remember that this summer when it's 72-degrees here .

ok, so tonight is the official beginning of winter here. temperatures are predicted to drop to 40 below in town, so it'll be about 50 below out where i live. super for sure going to pee before i go to bed and not drink a drop of anything at all, all night! haha. dangit! i had soup for supper :/

Don't you have a chamber pot? (The proverbial bucket to piss in?)

I would be using one f' sure.

Eric wrote:

Don't you have a chamber pot?  (The proverbial bucket to piss in?)

I would be using one f' sure.

so funny you just said that, cos i just woke up and had to pee and was like, "nope, f-that. that's why god made this here 5-gallon bucket."

Holy moly... I can't imagine -50. Can you have any skin exposed for more than a minute in that?

PkrBum wrote:

Holy moly... I can't imagine -50. Can you have any skin exposed for more than a minute in that?

no, and if you touch things like the door handle of your pickup you could lose your fingers, so since i've been up here i have worn gloves outside whether i needed them or not to get myself in the habit of not carelessly touching something metal when it's cold. i am hyper-concerned about it because my family has teased me my whole life because my "thermostat is out of whack," and i seem to constantly run at least 20-degrees F hotter than everyone else (ya, pensacola was super awesome for me, thanks, haha). it was always only a joke until now, because it could actually hurt me.

it's still only about -13... better get busy if it's gonna dip to -50 today. didn't do it last night. i have noticed that the temperature fluxuates extremely quickly here.

a factoid for ya: toilet paper freezes. i leave some by the front door, cos that just ain't nice.

Sounds like you could use one of these, Ricey.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Camping/Camp-Essentials/Showers-Toilets-Accessories%7C/pc/104795280/c/104709780/sc/104569380/Luggable-Loo-Toilet-Seat-and-Bucket/714054.uts?destination=%2Fcategory%2FShowers-Toilets-Accessories%2F104569380.uts&WTz_l=Unknown%3Bcat104569380

Ice road truckers - gives me the shivers just thinking about it!

i am on my phone, e... your post came across as gobbledy gook, but i assume it was one of those indoor camping potties. honestly, i'd just as soon use a bucket. those things are really expensive and a pain in the ass. one of my neighbors has one. 

ice road truckers is a great show, no chain. i was watching a few years back when a guy went through the ice. pretty hairy stuff.

it's still only about 20 below, so... no bonus for the weatherman so far today, but my life continues to be 24x7 excitement, and yes, you can most certainly read into that that getting run off the road into a culvert has not been the only entertainment recently. today i opened up the back door to dump the sludge bucket (from under the kitchen sink) onto the slough and when i got back it would not shut. logs settling + extreme temperature fluxuations, as it turns out, do funny things to a structure. I had to run out to my pickup and get all my tools, take the whole f-ing door off the hinges, disassemble the frame, shave & sand off some wood, put the frame back together, rehang the door. and yes, by that time, it was no degrees in my cabin... or less, i was not counting. for those of you wondering why i did not just shave & sand wood off the door, they are metal. i understand that wood doors don't fare too well here. the first night that it got around ten or fifteen below here i woke up in the middle of the night thinking someone was shooting outside my door, then realized it was the trees cracking in the low temps. 

i dont know how a person would make it here without a good sense of humor. really.

The thing I posted a link to was a standard 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat that fit on top.

Something like $16 at Cabellas. We have a variant of that for camping.

oh, that's actually kind of cool. i just can't abide spending a couple hundie for what amounts to a damn 5-gallon bucket that's a pain in the ass to clean out. ja know, mohn?

Like the old adage about a "Butterfly flapping it's wings" ending up a hurricane, Ricey broke wind in North Pole Alaska and Pensacola is now going down to 36 Saturday night.