thanke i'm very happy with it, gabe's been keeping rabbits since the end of last winter but he was in charge of it so i didn't really talk about it, but we decided to move them to the barn after it was finished
das kette was a kitten a friend of ours was giving away for free, we wanted a cat in the barn to catch mice and she was born and raised for a month in a barn before we got her. very pleased with her so far
das kette was a kitten a friend of ours was giving away for free, we wanted a cat in the barn to catch mice and she was born and raised for a month in a barn before we got her. very pleased with her so far
some reflections on the more interpersonal aspects of things i learned last year as well as some general reflections over the whole time i've been here, figured it would be somewhat interesting to those that like that sort of intrigue. it's getting harder and harder to actually post things that aren't text posts so this amd photos may be my only option for multimedia stuff right now
i'm pretty sure the mic is really quiet so if someone wants to amplify/fix the audio i would appreciate it, i don't want to run my generator right now so i can't use my laptop to fix it
the mic was really quiet so i tried to amplify it, sadly there were some spikes/clicks (microphone touching?) which made it impossible to just amplify due to clipping, i instead just compressed it to fuck and i hope that works good enough, i dont know shit about audio mixing
really glad to hear you're doing better, and i hope the year's plans to work for your own sake work out. i'm looking forward to seeing more about the cabin plans, as i always find that interesting lol
really glad to hear you're doing better, and i hope the year's plans to work for your own sake work out. i'm looking forward to seeing more about the cabin plans, as i always find that interesting lol
thanks for the compressed ver szy
having to drink to cope&sleep is unfortunately relatable, not right now but the last year and a half its been
self-imposed poverty and your flaws/strengths coming out from your company is so much more debilitating/important/influential than your "self" which is a challenge, feels better to be on your own than to be near negative influences
nhkcels... you missed the whole point...
cant wait to see the cabin drawings (i am not cute)
having to drink to cope&sleep is unfortunately relatable, not right now but the last year and a half its been
self-imposed poverty and your flaws/strengths coming out from your company is so much more debilitating/important/influential than your "self" which is a challenge, feels better to be on your own than to be near negative influences
nhkcels... you missed the whole point...
cant wait to see the cabin drawings (i am not cute)
the issue i often run into is determining how much grace to afford someone before your patience runs out, i tend to be overly sympathetic due to my circumstances in life but i often overassess how much people actually consider and internalize their issues and how to solve them. not being able to separate these things has caused me to enable destructive behaviors on behalf of others in the past while thinking i'm doing something good. unfortunately i'm running into this issue with gabe and co now but i feel as though i'm getting much better at rectifying these things so we shall see what happens
you may not be cute but i do like you <3
you may not be cute but i do like you <3
Unfortunately this post won't be the post regarding my plans for the cabin, as I'm still running over some of the finer details in my head still; however, I had an experience recently which has completely uprooted and changed my perspective on what is possible with wood fired stoves and bathing, washing clothes, and general wellness. It may seem mundane to some or inconsequential to others, but I’m speaking with one hundred percent sincerity that after this I feel like a changed man: I took a proper sauna for the first time.
The other day I was doing some chores for an elderly Finnish man that’s lived around here most of his life. He attends the same church as me and we get along very well, he’s got a great sense of humor and plenty of great stories. He’s the kind of guy that likes to do everything himself and hates asking for help, but being in his mid-eighties he swallowed his pride a bit and started asking around for the more physically demanding chores that would be dangerous for him to do; namely, shoveling the metal roof on his barn. Of course he still gets on top of the shingle roof of his house and shovels that off, but the barn roof is metal and pretty steep. I was constantly slipping and falling even with a rope tied to my belt so I can very well see why he didn’t want to get up there himself.
Honestly, calling these things with words like house and barn seriously demean the stunning beauty of his land and what he’s built for himself over his long life, it would be more accurate to describe it as a chateau; a northwoods chateau, mind you, but a chateau none the less. His house is a good size, two stories with a basement, roomy without being palatial, trimmed and decked inside and out in a wonderfully cozy way that I absolutely adore. The entire property is rolling hills, the house set atop a ridge with his pole barn and livestock barn down the hill surrounded by a wonderful garden and dozens of acres of prime pasture for cattle running along the hills and valleys. All the trees and bushes are wonderfully trimmed and well tended, as are the flower beds. If only there were still cattle in the livestock barn and out in the open pasture it would be perfect, but aside from that it is truly inspiring to see such a work of beauty carved out of the rocky, unforgiving terrain of the northwoods by the hands of one man and his late wife.
After I finished up with the snow on the roof he invited me inside for coffee and some delicious homemade stew. Being an avid garlic grower, he always keeps a small plate of garlic cloves on the table which are great for adding to soups or even eating on their own. That may sound strange to some, but the certain type of garlic he grows is one he brought over from italy several decades ago and the flavor is unlike any other type of garlic I’ve ever tried, very potent when crushed and added to food but tame and pleasant when eaten whole. I’m hoping some day he’ll give me a few bulbs to plant in my own garden but I’ve been afraid to ask. He enjoys showing people old photographs and going into detail about how he built his house so we discussed that for some time, and then he reminded me of the sauna he built in his basement that he showed me once in the past.
The fire box was lit. He had taken a sauna earlier and kept it stoked so he could offer me a chance to use it after finishing the roof.
I felt honored that he would offer such a thing, especially considering that he was also paying me well and giving me food and coffee unprompted. What a host! I accepted the offer with a bit of apprehension as I had never tried it before. I knew about the concept, of course, but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful if I didn’t. The wood stove in my house often gets too hot and I really hate how that feels, so I just assumed a sauna would be like that except with steam; honestly, I didn’t really understand the idea at all and it seemed incredibly unpleasant, but an entire country of people with a climate identical to here swear by it so I figured there was something I was missing. He brought me to the sauna and explained a few basic things, then turned on an old cd radio that played Finnish polka and left me alone to try it out. I appreciated the choice of music.
Like most other things on the vast property, the man built the sauna himself, including the stove. The room was a concrete block construction, the interior space being square no longer than eight feet and no taller than seven feet. The room was decked and trimmed with aged wood paneling except near the stove, which remained brick and concrete block. Along the back wall was a small glass block window and two rows of benches, one lower to the ground and another higher up behind it. On the benches were several large basins full of water warmed by the ambient temperature of the room, as well as several copper cups with handles for tossing water onto the stove. Opposite the benches in the corner was a large rectangular cast iron stove, the square base being about two feet and about as tall as my navel. The stove was divided vertically, the externally-loaded fire box taking up most of the height but a welded steel plate separated the fire box below from the stones above, with a six-inch stovepipe jutting out between the rocks running to the chimney. The sauna rocks were from the stony shores of lake Superior, the man picked and hauled them himself with his wife and children many decades back. A single-pass boiler was attached to the fire box, a top and bottom pipe running in and out to transfer heat from the fire to the water. A few feet away from the stove was a shower head and a spigot.
At first I sat on the bottom bench, uncertain of what to expect. The thermometer opposite me near the ceiling read 150*F so I was quite apprehensive about ascending to the second bench, wondering silently who would be so insane to do such a thing. I tossed some water onto the rocks but the feeling of steam was faint so I tossed more. Very quickly afterward I felt the steam enter my nose and lungs, a bit unpleasant at first but it very quickly became quite wonderful. My sinuses cleared instantly and the hot steam on my bare skin felt truly therapeutic. Feeling a bit overheated I dipped a cup into the lukewarm water next to me and poured it over my head, the cooling rinse washing over me felt absolutely heavenly. All it took was a good five minutes for me to completely understand why the finns enjoyed this so much.
Eventually I did end up on the top bench once I became used to the heat and the steam, laughing inwardly about my naive sentiments upon first entering. Using the shower head in the opposite corner, I ran cool water over my body as I washed myself while keeping the steam stoked, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of hot steam mingling with the cold water. In total I was in the sauna for just under an hour, after exiting I couldn’t recall a time in my life where I had ever felt so reinvigorated. I could hardly believe what I had just experienced.
I returned upstairs after getting dressed and headed out to the pole barn where the old man was repairing his tractor. We spoke a bit longer but at this point it was pretty late so I excused myself, my head swimming with endless ideas about how I might be able to build a sauna of my own and all of the possible uses it would have for a guy like me living without most modern conveniences.
If the sauna was only an ingenious method of bathing that keeps the sinuses clear and the skin fresh it would already be plenty good enough, but the true brilliance of it comes out when you consider all of the capabilities it offers someone without running water or electricity. The two biggest issues I’ve had since adopting this style of living have been keeping up with bathing and washing clothes/bedding as both tasks are very time consuming and generally unpleasant, especially washing clothes in the winter.
Currently whenever I want to bathe I heat up a metal bucket full of water over the stove to a decent temperature, usually warmer than I prefer because it tends to cool off before you finish. In the summertime I take the bucket outside but in the wintertime I keep it inside and bring a metal wash basin inside that I stand in to keep water off the floor. There’s a set of large sponges I use to dip in the bucket of water to first wet my body, apply soap, and then rinse the soap out. Afterwards I kneel over the ground or the wash basin, wet my hair by pouring a cup of water over my head from the bucket, apply shampoo, rinse with the cup, etc etc. It’s incredibly slow and generally unpleasant, and frankly by the end of it I don’t really feel much cleaner than I did before though it definitely does keep me from smelling like an ogre.
As for washing clothes, I use that same metal wash basin for bathing inside in the winter but in a very different way. I suspend the basin above the ground with two concrete blocks and kindle a fire underneath, then fill the basin with water. Because of the volume of water in the basin it often takes quite some time to heat to a decent temperature, but the problem at that point is that you need to maintain the water at that temperature. You don’t wash clothes with boiling water and if it gets too hot you can damage the clothing, so you frequently have to keep adding cold water and additional soap to the basin as you agitate the clothes, sometimes scouring them against a washboard with additional soap, before wringing and drying them on a line. While this works for clothing I have never once successfully washed bedding with this technique, often I just cheat and wash bedding in the machines at the camp I work at.
It should come as no surprise why I was so elated to see a method of bathing that works so well without requiring running water (though the shower head in the old finn’s sauna was definitely nice!), but the truly eye-opening aspect of it for me was how I could also use this setup as an effective method for washing clothes and bedding without the shortcomings of my current method and effectively solve both problems at once. Because the sauna remains so hot while in operation, the basins inside never cool off much, and having a simple boiler running off the sauna fire box allows you to bring up the temperature of the basins with relative ease. This would make it really easy to maintain the wash temperature for clothes and bedding, but also allow for easy steaming of bedsheets by hanging them from the ceiling while operating the sauna normally. It’s a perfect solution to one of my most notorious problems since coming here, and evidently after looking into it that was one of the major historical uses of the traditional Finnish sauna as well.
I was very tempted to flood that old man with a million and one questions about saunas and building them but I didn’t want to be annoying. Second priority on my list now after building the cabin is to build myself one of these amazing devices, and currently I’m considering how to work it into my current plans for the new cabin. It’s an interesting thing to think about especially because it involves two trades I’m not particularly familiar with, metalworking and masonry/cementwork, so thinking about the actual methods of construction and implementation are driving me absolutely mad with ideas. I’ll definitely write more about it here as I think about it more and come up with more definitive plans.
(as an end note i was finally able to afford a little keyboard that works with this phone and it definitely rekindled my passion for writing on the forum, so expect to see moar poasts like this over the winter >:3)
The other day I was doing some chores for an elderly Finnish man that’s lived around here most of his life. He attends the same church as me and we get along very well, he’s got a great sense of humor and plenty of great stories. He’s the kind of guy that likes to do everything himself and hates asking for help, but being in his mid-eighties he swallowed his pride a bit and started asking around for the more physically demanding chores that would be dangerous for him to do; namely, shoveling the metal roof on his barn. Of course he still gets on top of the shingle roof of his house and shovels that off, but the barn roof is metal and pretty steep. I was constantly slipping and falling even with a rope tied to my belt so I can very well see why he didn’t want to get up there himself.
Honestly, calling these things with words like house and barn seriously demean the stunning beauty of his land and what he’s built for himself over his long life, it would be more accurate to describe it as a chateau; a northwoods chateau, mind you, but a chateau none the less. His house is a good size, two stories with a basement, roomy without being palatial, trimmed and decked inside and out in a wonderfully cozy way that I absolutely adore. The entire property is rolling hills, the house set atop a ridge with his pole barn and livestock barn down the hill surrounded by a wonderful garden and dozens of acres of prime pasture for cattle running along the hills and valleys. All the trees and bushes are wonderfully trimmed and well tended, as are the flower beds. If only there were still cattle in the livestock barn and out in the open pasture it would be perfect, but aside from that it is truly inspiring to see such a work of beauty carved out of the rocky, unforgiving terrain of the northwoods by the hands of one man and his late wife.
After I finished up with the snow on the roof he invited me inside for coffee and some delicious homemade stew. Being an avid garlic grower, he always keeps a small plate of garlic cloves on the table which are great for adding to soups or even eating on their own. That may sound strange to some, but the certain type of garlic he grows is one he brought over from italy several decades ago and the flavor is unlike any other type of garlic I’ve ever tried, very potent when crushed and added to food but tame and pleasant when eaten whole. I’m hoping some day he’ll give me a few bulbs to plant in my own garden but I’ve been afraid to ask. He enjoys showing people old photographs and going into detail about how he built his house so we discussed that for some time, and then he reminded me of the sauna he built in his basement that he showed me once in the past.
The fire box was lit. He had taken a sauna earlier and kept it stoked so he could offer me a chance to use it after finishing the roof.
I felt honored that he would offer such a thing, especially considering that he was also paying me well and giving me food and coffee unprompted. What a host! I accepted the offer with a bit of apprehension as I had never tried it before. I knew about the concept, of course, but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful if I didn’t. The wood stove in my house often gets too hot and I really hate how that feels, so I just assumed a sauna would be like that except with steam; honestly, I didn’t really understand the idea at all and it seemed incredibly unpleasant, but an entire country of people with a climate identical to here swear by it so I figured there was something I was missing. He brought me to the sauna and explained a few basic things, then turned on an old cd radio that played Finnish polka and left me alone to try it out. I appreciated the choice of music.
Like most other things on the vast property, the man built the sauna himself, including the stove. The room was a concrete block construction, the interior space being square no longer than eight feet and no taller than seven feet. The room was decked and trimmed with aged wood paneling except near the stove, which remained brick and concrete block. Along the back wall was a small glass block window and two rows of benches, one lower to the ground and another higher up behind it. On the benches were several large basins full of water warmed by the ambient temperature of the room, as well as several copper cups with handles for tossing water onto the stove. Opposite the benches in the corner was a large rectangular cast iron stove, the square base being about two feet and about as tall as my navel. The stove was divided vertically, the externally-loaded fire box taking up most of the height but a welded steel plate separated the fire box below from the stones above, with a six-inch stovepipe jutting out between the rocks running to the chimney. The sauna rocks were from the stony shores of lake Superior, the man picked and hauled them himself with his wife and children many decades back. A single-pass boiler was attached to the fire box, a top and bottom pipe running in and out to transfer heat from the fire to the water. A few feet away from the stove was a shower head and a spigot.
At first I sat on the bottom bench, uncertain of what to expect. The thermometer opposite me near the ceiling read 150*F so I was quite apprehensive about ascending to the second bench, wondering silently who would be so insane to do such a thing. I tossed some water onto the rocks but the feeling of steam was faint so I tossed more. Very quickly afterward I felt the steam enter my nose and lungs, a bit unpleasant at first but it very quickly became quite wonderful. My sinuses cleared instantly and the hot steam on my bare skin felt truly therapeutic. Feeling a bit overheated I dipped a cup into the lukewarm water next to me and poured it over my head, the cooling rinse washing over me felt absolutely heavenly. All it took was a good five minutes for me to completely understand why the finns enjoyed this so much.
Eventually I did end up on the top bench once I became used to the heat and the steam, laughing inwardly about my naive sentiments upon first entering. Using the shower head in the opposite corner, I ran cool water over my body as I washed myself while keeping the steam stoked, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of hot steam mingling with the cold water. In total I was in the sauna for just under an hour, after exiting I couldn’t recall a time in my life where I had ever felt so reinvigorated. I could hardly believe what I had just experienced.
I returned upstairs after getting dressed and headed out to the pole barn where the old man was repairing his tractor. We spoke a bit longer but at this point it was pretty late so I excused myself, my head swimming with endless ideas about how I might be able to build a sauna of my own and all of the possible uses it would have for a guy like me living without most modern conveniences.
If the sauna was only an ingenious method of bathing that keeps the sinuses clear and the skin fresh it would already be plenty good enough, but the true brilliance of it comes out when you consider all of the capabilities it offers someone without running water or electricity. The two biggest issues I’ve had since adopting this style of living have been keeping up with bathing and washing clothes/bedding as both tasks are very time consuming and generally unpleasant, especially washing clothes in the winter.
Currently whenever I want to bathe I heat up a metal bucket full of water over the stove to a decent temperature, usually warmer than I prefer because it tends to cool off before you finish. In the summertime I take the bucket outside but in the wintertime I keep it inside and bring a metal wash basin inside that I stand in to keep water off the floor. There’s a set of large sponges I use to dip in the bucket of water to first wet my body, apply soap, and then rinse the soap out. Afterwards I kneel over the ground or the wash basin, wet my hair by pouring a cup of water over my head from the bucket, apply shampoo, rinse with the cup, etc etc. It’s incredibly slow and generally unpleasant, and frankly by the end of it I don’t really feel much cleaner than I did before though it definitely does keep me from smelling like an ogre.
As for washing clothes, I use that same metal wash basin for bathing inside in the winter but in a very different way. I suspend the basin above the ground with two concrete blocks and kindle a fire underneath, then fill the basin with water. Because of the volume of water in the basin it often takes quite some time to heat to a decent temperature, but the problem at that point is that you need to maintain the water at that temperature. You don’t wash clothes with boiling water and if it gets too hot you can damage the clothing, so you frequently have to keep adding cold water and additional soap to the basin as you agitate the clothes, sometimes scouring them against a washboard with additional soap, before wringing and drying them on a line. While this works for clothing I have never once successfully washed bedding with this technique, often I just cheat and wash bedding in the machines at the camp I work at.
It should come as no surprise why I was so elated to see a method of bathing that works so well without requiring running water (though the shower head in the old finn’s sauna was definitely nice!), but the truly eye-opening aspect of it for me was how I could also use this setup as an effective method for washing clothes and bedding without the shortcomings of my current method and effectively solve both problems at once. Because the sauna remains so hot while in operation, the basins inside never cool off much, and having a simple boiler running off the sauna fire box allows you to bring up the temperature of the basins with relative ease. This would make it really easy to maintain the wash temperature for clothes and bedding, but also allow for easy steaming of bedsheets by hanging them from the ceiling while operating the sauna normally. It’s a perfect solution to one of my most notorious problems since coming here, and evidently after looking into it that was one of the major historical uses of the traditional Finnish sauna as well.
I was very tempted to flood that old man with a million and one questions about saunas and building them but I didn’t want to be annoying. Second priority on my list now after building the cabin is to build myself one of these amazing devices, and currently I’m considering how to work it into my current plans for the new cabin. It’s an interesting thing to think about especially because it involves two trades I’m not particularly familiar with, metalworking and masonry/cementwork, so thinking about the actual methods of construction and implementation are driving me absolutely mad with ideas. I’ll definitely write more about it here as I think about it more and come up with more definitive plans.
(as an end note i was finally able to afford a little keyboard that works with this phone and it definitely rekindled my passion for writing on the forum, so expect to see moar poasts like this over the winter >:3)