SunRay Kelley (featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast) just finished this stove in a strawbale house in Lake County, California. The design is the result of many stoves built over many years. The outer facing is soapstone. There are copper coils that heat water and as well, run hot water through pipes in the floor for radiant heating. At the top is a bread/pizza oven. This one unit heats the house (the air as well as the floor), provides hot water, and is an oven for cooking. SunRay says the soapstone “…takes on deep heat.” The floor is a “…heat battery” that stores heat. He calls it the Goddess of Contentment stove. He says it works really well, the floor is toasty warm and the pizza gets perfectly cooked.
SunRay and his girlfriend Bonnie were here last night, on their way to Santa Barbara, LA, then Mexico for 6 weeks, in their soon-to-be solar-powered camper.
Next up for SunRay in the stove department is in a new house he’s building on his own property in Washington: the same configuration stove, but with the addition of a steam boiler to run a turbine that produces electricity. We are into new territory here!
Photo by Bonnie
I’ve been walking over to document my neighbor Steve’s progress in moving a house onto a foundation on his lot. I discovered this great predator-proof chicken yard. Steve used rebar to form a dome shape (strength-in-curves) frame and covered it with chicken wire. We are about to build a new chicken coop for our bantams and I’m going to use this setup for their yard.
Shakes by Bruno, shaking by Billy
This Saturday, 11/6, I’m giving a short talk (with slides) in San Francisco titled “The Half-Acre Homestead in the 21st Century.” It’s from 2:00 PM to 2:45 PM. I went around and shot a bunch of photos around home and garden (below is living room). The idea is to show people what I’ve learned in 50 years of building, gardening, maintenance, and useful tools.
On Sunday, from 1PM to 1:45 PM, I’m doing a presentation titled: “Creative Carpentry: Builders of the Pacific Coast,” which chronicles my 2 years shooting photos and interviewing carpenters in the Pacific Northwest.
The SF Green Festival is this weekend, Nov. 6-7, at the SF Concourse Exhibition Center (a cool building), 635 8th St (at Brannan), San Francisco, CA 94103. It’s usually jam packed, a good-vibes event. We’ll have a booth and be selling books.
https://www.greenfestivals.org/sf/updates/
We’ve had 2″ of rain in the last 3 days. A bit early, and it feels good after the long dry period we always have (almost 6 months). Each year I seem to be late in getting porcinis, so this season I’m starting early. Not a fungi in sight at my porcini meadows yesterday, but this well-developed cauliflower mushroom was sitting next to a rotting pine stump.
It’s flavorful. Sauteed last night and mixed with potatoes and chicken gravy, then this morning in a potato-chard-onion omelette.
Today I’m starting to get ready for my talk at the SF Green Festival on Saturday, Nov. 6th on “The Half-Acre Homestead in the 21st Century.” Am shooting pics of house, compost bins, garden and building tools, the stuff that keeps this place running.
We now have a flock of about 24 bantams, maybe 7 of which are these Silver Sebrights. We have one Golden Sebright. I fell in love with these beautiful birds a few years ago when I saw a 10-year-old girl’s flock at the Mendocino County Fair. They lay very small eggs, are a bit skittish, but oh those white feathers outlined in black! We get all our chickens from Murray McMurray Hatchery; they come via the U.S. post office overnight.
Here’s a good blog with a lot of practical hands-on tips for raising chickens in urban or suburban areas: https://urban-agrarian.blogspot.com/
SunRay Kelley (featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast) just finished this stove in a strawbale house in Lake County, California. The design is the result of many stoves built over many years. The outer facing is soapstone. There are copper coils that heat water and as well, run hot water through pipes in the floor for radiant heating. At the top is a bread/pizza oven. This one unit heats the house (the air as well as the floor), provides hot water, and is an oven for cooking. SunRay says the soapstone “…takes on deep heat.” The floor is a “…heat battery” that stores heat. He calls it the Goddess of Contentment stove. He says it works really well, the floor is toasty warm and the pizza gets perfectly cooked.
