Alternative heat

A couple posts ago, I promised a post about getting heating appliances off electricity. Heat is the easiest energy form to produce from alternative and renewable sources. It is easy to get low grade heat from solar for water heating. Very simple solar water heaters will supply a surprising amount of heat from sunlight. Small solar box ovens can even cook with the power of the sun. They can be made with such simple and cheap materials as aluminum foil and a cardboard box.
When I get time, I will be putting plans on the web site and providing links to various other plans.
Get rid of all the small cooking gadgets that use electricity for heat. They are for the most part very convenient but not at all efficient. There are a few exceptions, but the label will tell you how much power they use.
One thing you can do is to convert your cook stove to propane. Propane is easily storable and in most areas, it costs much less than electricity.
Unless you are in an apartment, you can usually install biomass appliances, such as wood heating and cooking stoves. Small stoves which burn their own smoke can be made from tin cans. I use these in what used to be my stainless steel cook top. I tore out the electric burners and installed these little burners that run on leaves, grass, sticks, wood chips, rabbit or lama dung, or wood pellets. These are all renewable fuels and you don't need a chainsaw to gather them. Since they burn their own smoke for fuel, they need no flue. Just open the window a crack for fresh air while using them.
These little stoves can be scaled up using larger cans, such as old five gallon popcorn cans, for space heating. However, for space heating, they MUST have a properly installed flue. Since they are using a lot more fuel, there are more dangerous gasses given off. If you are really desperate for cooking heat, you can get it cheaply by burning old newspapers. This must be done outside. I have a neat gadget that I bought in a yard sale. It is a big tin pot with all the appropriate air holes. I tightly wad up 12 sheets of newspaper and it burns long enough to cook a rack of hamburgers nicely. There are endless ways to use biomass for cooking. Be aware of fire and smoke danger and keep children safely away.
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org

Cleanup and new batteries(well, new to me)

Thanks to the generosity of Steve Britten, owner of Capco powder coating in Coquille, Ore, I have a set of two good used, large, deep cycle six volt batteries. I hooked them in series and put them in the alternative energy powerhouse. It has been very dark and wet until the last couple of days so the poor little fifty watt solar panel was having a struggle charging them. They had sat for awhile and partially discharged and have been on the solar for more than a week. But the last two days have been very sunny and they are now almost fully charged. Hooray! Plenty of storage now for the one panel I have. I will be going a-begging for more panels. I have a three hundred watt controller and my calculations show that if I get three hundred watts of panels total, I will be able to run everything but the refrigerator and water heater, although I will be able to run the refrigerator for about fifty percent of the time on the solar. Since I have most of the materials for a wood/ solar water heater, I will begin construction on one this spring. That will solve that problem. My goal is one hundred percent renewable within two years. The weather was great today so I did some cleanup and got the compost pile in shape for spring.

www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org

Edible red clover

This post is a little different. It is about what I learned in my research of the edible plant, red clover. Red clover is the type of clover that has a large red or reddish-purple flower. I did some experiments with this plant and this is what I found. The leaves are very good as salad material, a little tangy but mild. They also make great tea, with no caffeine. The young stems and leaves can be steamed until tender and used like spinach or other greens. In the winter, early spring and late fall, the bigger roots are good as a starchy food. They can be eaten raw when they are tender. They can be steamed or boiled and treated much like beets or turnips or other root crops. They are very mild and take on the taste of other ingredients in the dish. So try some clover today and enjoy!

www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org

Reducing electricity use

Years ago, I decided to get off the electricity grid. I thought it would be fairly easy and cheap. Not so. My all electric house used so much power that a renewable system was far out of my reach. I began to reduce my electricity usage. The first thing I did was to kill all phantom loads. These are the things that suck up power, even when turned off. I put them on switch strips and turn them off when not in use. I then made the habit of being aware of all my energy and water use. Just by being aware and using it only when necessary, I began to reduce my consumption. Slowly, I began to see my utility bills start to decrease. Then I set about getting all possible heating appliances off electricity. Heating is the biggest user of electricity and also the easiest to switch to alternatives. But that is for the next post.....

www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org

Back to work...

Well, it has been been six painful months since I did an entry in this blog. Kidney stones, illnesses and feet trouble have all conspired against me. But these are all cleared up now and I have been moving forward. I have completed the last of three green houses and they are in production. We had a good winter crop, thanks to the intern Raymonds excellent research into suitable crops for winter in this area. Another intern, Carey, did all the calculations and most of the construction for the alternative energy power house and we now have it finished. The solar panel gives enough juice, even in the winter, that all the lights run off it. Hooray for Carey! Her angle and distance calculations were perfect. All eleven raised beds are finished, thanks to Amanda, Carey and Fon. Most of them are producing now. Only three are still fallow, to be planted soon. Many agricultural experiments were finished successfully this winter. I will be posting the results this week on the web site, www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org