Years ago, I made cooking chuck box, intended to be used for an occasional overnighter at the lake and mounted in some form of converted van, station wagon or the like. Well, things went a little different – no van, but my trusty old Lada Niva, called “Juri” that I still proudly own today and that steadily serves me very well.
Chicken Den Insulation
I’m from germany – the homeland of orders and regulation. Amongst many others, there is an overabundance of strict and in-depth building laws to follow meticulously. So, as a decent citizen I have diligently insulated the chicken den to keep up to our beloved green party’s visionary energy saving laws. </irony off>
Well, ok, also to keep it frost free and cozy for the girls over the winter 😁 It kept an inside temperature of 6°C when it was -4°C at night, just from body heat. I’m pleased with this result.
I used 30 mm Jackodur ™ for insulating, which is waterproof, rot resistant and non toxic. It is a popular material for the thermal insulation of basements, so it’s available in every hardware store and it’s fairly affordable.
Cheese Curd Cutter
… or “cheese harp”. It’s used to cut the coagulated curds into equally sized pieces during the cheese making process. I made one since I either didn’t like the ones you can buy at the store or they are suited for large 50 l batches of milk. I needed one for my small 4-5 l milk portions that fits my pot.
Flower Pot Candle Heaters… Debunked a little
Fall is here again and winter is approaching inevitably. So the annual posts on clay pot candle heaters are prospering again as they do every year. With germany’s energy crisis becoming more and more obvious, lots of untrustworthy and even mainstream voices rise recommending tealight-ovens as an alternative means of heating. In the light of a recent discussion, let me clarify things on this issue a little bit if you allow, ok?
I have one of these contraptions (home made of course) running in my greenhouse – they work fine and as long as you know what they’re really doing you can use them adequately and rely on them properly.
Make a Worm Farm
I set up a new earthworm farm as already done before in the northern germany refuge, containing about 50 common earthworms (lat. lumbricus terrestris) at the moment. Aside from having good fishing bait at hand at all times, I want to supply my cherished chickens with yummy earthworms from time to time. Now the guys are sitting in the basement and I hope they’ll reproduce diligently 🙂
Prepping: Update on Blackout Precautions
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s about Germany, the country where I was born and raised, where I have lived all my life and that was a decent, advanced industrialized nation about just one year ago. Now, our current green-leftist government is obviously diligently working hard on passing the nation right downwards to the third world.
Effects
This includes (among much else) meanwhile even official bodies declaring large-scale blackouts well possible this winter – due to our amateurishly conducted and eventually disastrous “energy turnaround”. Not even a year ago, people articulating the exact same warnings were disparaged as “nazis” (will always work in germany), “conspiracy theorists” or simply “weirdos”. I’m proud to state that I was one of them 🙂
Strawberry Raised Bed
We got a new chicken-quarantine-box (a former luxury guinea pig enclosure, with large windows, better ventilation and easy access), so we were able to re-purpose the trusty old one: Now it’s a raised bed for the SO’s perennial strawberry plants.
Viking-style Table
After the viking-style chair I made shortly, I decided to make likewise coffee table as well, this time for my own backyard. It was as uncomplicated and as satisfiying as the first build, made from the same scaffolding oakwood with a 3 cm thickness.
Easy Knife Sharpening Aid
People who are not overly familiar with sharpening knives on a whetstone might find this little tool useful:
It slides on the spine of your knife and ensures a consistent grinding angle being maintained easily.
