Site Discussions

We have a 1973 Vermont Casting Defiant which I bought used about ten years ago. Had to replace one of the backing plates and reseal the stove. It heats up my 1500 square foot home with no problem and since the house has electric heat we save a bundle of money. This old Defiant can take up to a 22 inch log which is great. So I would never hesitate to buy a used one if is in good shape. I also heat my camp in Vermont with a 1985 Dutchwest Federal Style Small stove. Finally had to retire it because the shaker grate fell apart. I decided to replace it with a small Dutchwest steel plate stove. This was mainly do to the fact that people want unreasonable amounts for used stoves today. So I hope that my experiment with new stove technology works out for us in the future.

Sold firewood for a living on the west coast.
Maul length: about 30” - 36”. I’m 5’9” and use 32”-34”. Longer is better than shorter.
Handle material: hardwood preferred
Handle design: NOT straight. Straight is very hard on the wrist. Nicely curved, especially at the end, is critical if you chop much and value your body.
Handle grain pattern: You want a tight grain pattern that is running fairly straight and parallel with the motion of swing. Parallel helps in longevity of handle if you “overstrike”.
Maul head: should be dull, not sharp. It’s not for chopping, it’s for splitting. You don’t want to be struggling to get it out if it doesn’t split in one strike.
Maul head weight: 4.5-6 lbs.  8 lbs. is for the young,(soon to be old).

Black spruce swamps are the place to look here in VT. If you do find it let the VT Natural Heritage Inventory know - it’s considered to be a rare plant (ranked S2 - imperiled) and it seldom does any damage to commercially valuable trees here.

I used to climb the fire tower on Saint Regis Mountain in the Adirondaks when I was attending Paul Smiths’ College in the mid- 1990’s. I don’t know if it’s still there, but I sure took some great pictures from it.

I typed in Google search “oak tree still has leaves” and yours was the first answer. Thank you for the info. I walk my dog a lot and noticed a tree with leaves on it. A big and tall oak tree. The wind was blowing and the sound it made going through the leaves was beautiful. I live in Akron, Ohio. We have had snow, freezing rain and temperatures in the single digits. This is the only tree in a 1 mile radius that still has its leaves. On the next windy day I’m going to try and record some video of the tree. Thanks again for the info.

Let nature run its course.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/174251

Exposure to an environment containing the aromatic red cedar, Juniperus virginiana: procarcinogenic, enzyme-inducing and insecticidal effects.
Sabine JR.
Abstract
(1) Shavings from the Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) were examined for three diverse biological properties, i.e. enzyme induction, procarcinogenicity and insecticidal activity. (2) The ability of a cedar environment to stimulate liver drug-metabolizing enzymes in mice was confirmed by lowered values for barbiturate sleeping time. (3) In susceptible strains of mice (C3H-Avy, C3H-AvyfB and CBA/J) the use of cedar shavings as bedding increased significantly the incidence of spontaneous tumors of the liver and mammary gland, and also reduced the average time at which tumors appeared. (4) Cedar and some of its derivatives (Oil of Cedarwood, cedrene, cedrol) disrupted the reproductive and developmental cycle of a number of insects, including the Peanut Trash Bug (Elasmolomus sordidus), the Indian Meal Moth (Plodia interpunctella) and the Forage Mite (Tyrophagus putrescentiae).

PMID: 174251 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Using selectively harvested trees for heating is great and the savings quoted are relevant, but you should include the fuel required to harvest, chip, and transport the wood.

I used axe and crosscut to cut timber when a teenager in the early 60s. A lot of hard work, but fond memories. I now use mostly chainsaws( stihl ms880, husq 281 xp, several shindaiwas), but I still like to get out the axe & crosscut from time to time. It’s good exercise and I still enjoy doing it. I’m 66 & need the aerobic workout it gives.  My father taught me how to use all hand tools, including a scythe (a scythe doesn’t chop, it slices.  I still have all of his sharpening tools. I still have a 6 ft. two man and a 4ft. one man. I enjoyed your website. Thank you.

It seems that New England farmers and especially sheep herders all those years ago were able to move tons of stone to create thousands of miles of stone walls, most of which at their time must have been beautiful yet functional.  It would not surprise me that these same ingenious people built chambers to use as cellars, etc… 

A couple hundred years ago, America experienced a little ice age.  It would make sense that farmers might construct such root cellars to store as much crops and food they could b/c of the environment they lived in.  Plus, being underground, small structures like these could be used as emergency shelters to potentially protect families from the bitter winters of the little ice age?

However, like Dighton Rock near the Taunton River, such stone structures remain mysteries.  Gavin Menzies wrote his controversial book, 1421, claiming that the Chinese made it to America is yet another theory to add to the mix of the mysterious stone work found in New England.  The fact that a mystery like this still puzzles us is wonderful.  Sometimes the truth is only what we make of it.

Congrats Patrick!  Your dad was one of the best teachers and person to work with in my many years in Bennington County.

Missile-toe!

I looked but couldn’t find a video of this seed launch. Is one out there?

That was a very pleasant story and this magazine is the greatest. I have to renew my subscription. The best wishes with your new job. Ciao

Elise
I don’t recall if we talked about this (I don’t recall a lot of things at my age), but I had a farm in Virginia too. It was just a hobby farm. We had Scottish Highlanders. The farm was in a little town called Markham. Just a post office, but so much more! =-)
Bob

Great opening blog, Patrick. Welcome to the organization!
Ed

Welcome, Patrick!  Nice job on your first blog - you’ve certainly set the tone for a promising tenure advancing NW’s unique and critical mission. Looking forward to much more from you.

Ryan Owens
Executive Director
The Monadnock Conservancy

We had a perfectly fine root cellar beside the road before any of this poppycock about ancient ruins started. Result: some jackass stole the supposedly OGAM inscribed cornerstone and the whole structure fell down in Irene and now is a real ruin. Nice.

Kudos to Dave Mance for expanding on an already thought-provoking lecture, one that I would have liked to have seen.  While I also am not fond of hearing of ecosystems boiled down to carbon units, I can’t help but chime in on a few points.  First, as the slides show, its the age of carbon coming out of the soils that is at issue…and since carbon is released for decades, that carbon is at least decades old.  But decades is how long it takes to grow the forest back, too.  Northern hardwoods have been cleared several times, and if really old (1000’s of years) carbon was to be released, it would have been after initial clearing and grazing in the 1800’s.  Second, although this disagrees with traditional forestry concepts, there is newer evidence that ecosystems continue to serve as carbon sinks even after canopy trees reach old age and begin dying (Luyssaert 2008 in Nature).  Other recent work in redwood forests, 2000 years old, show they continue to be an increasingly effective carbon sink over time.  Old forests are rare in the northeast not only because of harvest, but ice storms and wind, and they are not in our memory.  However, they were much more common during pre-settlement, as described in the nice Northern Woodlands story on Maine’s presettlement forests.  I believe in the value of allowing forests to get old simply to bring back a nearly extinct habitat.  And if old northern hardwood forests continue to be a carbon sink (as suggested by recent studies), then great.

One more comment regarding burning wood, because I can’t resist.  I am a recent convert to pellet stoves.  Here in Oregon, pellets come from small-diameter Douglas-fir from thinning operations and waste from lumber mills.  Pellet stoves emit about 25% of the particulates of an EPA-certified wood stove and are not banned when my town is under an air stagnation advisory.  While my pellet stove (made in VT!) requires some electricity and is a little noisy, there is minimal labor involved.  I don’t know the economics, but right now pellets are cheaper per btu than firewood, split and delivered.

By coincidence, a recent NPR blog post touches on a similar question—not about burning wood, but about how, why, and when scientific information is helpful to the general conversation and how, why, and when it can get in the way of a useful conversation. See http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/12/16/251437395/global-warming-explained-in-about-a-minute. A line from it that made me think of this blog post is “Many people assume the science is way beyond them (and of course, an expert level of understanding probably is beyond most of us), but simultaneously fail to appreciate how profoundly they lack the basics. When the basics are presented, they’re often sandwiched between some daunting math and some scary jargon, which don’t exactly boost overall palatability.” If I read your post correctly, I think you are suggesting that Friedland did some of this sandwiching of basics between relatively daunting specialty nuance, which resulted in confusion for at least some attendees.

I think I might be the person you refer to who “reported that a study he’d read said that only a small percentage of people in Vermont could burn wood, after which it would become unsustainable.” The study I mentioned at Friedland’s talk is the Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan, at http://publicservice.vermont.gov/publications/energy_plan.

It says that currently (or at least, as of about 2011), Vermont gets 14% of its heating from “biomass” which I think is nearly all cord wood or wood pellets. A small bit of bio-based heating oil and maybe a smidge of grass pellets is in the mix.

At Friedland’s talk, I (mis)quoted from memory that the study says Vermont can sustainably get 20% of the state’s heating needs with wood. I was remembering incorrectly. Looking back at the report, it says Vermont can sustainably go up to 30%. See volume 2, page 200.

What isn’t clear to me on a quick re-skimming of the report is whether that estimate includes assumptions about improving weatherization of buildings. Can we get 30% of heat from wood with our buildings as they are, or only after the average building improves its insulation and air leakage situation?

Dave,

Thank you for succinctly and eloquently putting into words what I have observed over 38 years of teaching, research, and service in the field of Natural Resources Management.  Trained as a “scientist” I had to learn that “management” involved more than just “science”; it involved the integration of the biophysical system with the socio-economic-political systems.  Also I came to perceive that even “science”, with it’s ever-increasing “fragmentation” into tiny islands of specialization, can only offer a blind man’s confidence about his little patch of the elephant.

Thanks also to the others who commented – my faith in common sense is restored!

The Blind Men and the Elephant
John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

“And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!”

—John Fox