Gathering Heat

Yep.  Gathering heat.

We have an outdoor furnace that heats our house and kinda sorta takes the worst of the chill off our shop.  It works by having a center fire in the "pit" of the furnace that heats up water in a "tub" around the fire pit.  The hot water runs continuously through underground pipes to the house and shop and then through a special radiator on our indoor furnace.  The fan on the indoor furnace blows air over the heated radiator and eventually through the ducts in the house to keep us warm and toasty. 

(I know I've explained all that before, but its a review for my "new readers"!)

But having an outdoor furnace means we have to keep an ample supply of "stuff" to feed the fiery beast!.  The furnace can burn a variety of fuels including, but not limited to, wood, corn stalks, coal and grass.  Last year was the first year that the kids were big enough for us to all go out safely to help.  I guess Josh enjoyed it when we were out there (whether it's the company, the help or both is yet to be determined), so we were invited out again this year to do what we could do to earn keeping our piggies warm.

First, our primary fuel, wood:

This is how we do it.  We use a hydraulic cart.  The cart's real purpose is to move hogs from place to place, but since we don't have a need to move hogs around anymore, we might as well use it for something... right?  The kids think it's just about as fun as can be to ride to location in the cart.

And this is "on location" this particular day.  For some reason, we've had several trees die in the ditch near our pasture.  Since you can only tell a dead tree in the summer when it doesn't leaf out, Josh went through earlier in the year to mark all the dead trees.  Then all we had to do was find the X's and get to work. 

This place was like a great big natural playground for the young'uns.  I don't know how long we worked, but it would be in the "hours" category and they never ran out of anything fun to do or explore.  Can you find them in the picture above?

 

There they are!  Caleb's pretty obvious but you'll have to look for Sarah's black-hatted head.

Can you see them now?

We had a few visitors come see what we were doing invading their territory.  They eventually got  bored with us and most of them left.

Not quite a full load, but this Mama had loaded what was loaded in the cart while Josh cut and after throwing every single piece over the sides of the cart, I had had enough.  Since our furnace can burn pretty big chunks of wood,  Josh didn't bother cutting them any smaller than he had to.  Most of them were definitely heavier than my kids, so well over 50 pounds.  And after having thrown all that, my wrists (of all things!) were just tuckered out and begging for a break.

 

And whoever isn't the driver gets gate opening and closing duties... that's me, I guess.  I hate gate duty.  Not because I mind the work or the risk of shock (it's an electric fence), but it's the nagging thought from then on until someone else does the gate the nest time whether or not I got the thing shut properly.  Should one not do a perfect job, we might just get up in the morning (or worse yet, a midnight phone call or knock on the door from the sheriff) to find cattle on the road... which is never a good feeling, especially when you were the last one to shut the gate!

Proof the gate is shut... or at least proof that I was shutting it.  See the kids sitting in the wood pile?  It's the next best thing to a hay ride!

 

 

Second, our booster fuel, which this year is grass bales:

In the past, we've used corn stalk bales to add to the furnace to make the wood burn slower.  Well, we've discovered that our square baler doesn't like working with corn stalks.  So we're trying an alternative booster this year: grass bales.  I think the idea got rolling around in the guys' heads when my brother in law Brian looked out in our draw and commented on how much grass could be baled from it.  A couple of days later, a light bulb went off and the guys were at work.  Most people would probably use this baled grass (not hay) to try and stretch their feed source for some sort of livestock for the winter.  But not us.

Now what makes this picture really unique is that we're baling on the last day of November.  (I know what the date says, but the date is wrong.  My camera was 12 hours ahead.)  No one bales on the last day of November.... unless a brother in law gives you an idea that eventually gives you a light bulb to bale grass for heat!

Caleb was right in there, never far from the men!

 

I wonder how many BTUs are laying there?

Coffee time.  This might have just been our last outdoors coffee time for 2013.   Even though it was cold, it was bearable. After this afternoon, it turned bitter and has been ever since!  WAY too early!

When the ground was good and frozen a week later, it was time to pick up the bales and bring them home.  I was given tractor duty, which was a whole lot warmer than the other duties for sure!  It was about 10 out.  Sarah and Caleb rode with me for the first round, but while picking up the second round....
 

...Caleb chose to have a hayride.  A very cold hayride.  He stayed warm though, thanks to a mother who dressed him in many, many layers!  But you can tell by the grimace that his cute little cheeks are kinda cold.

Back on the yard, I threw the bales off (both loads) while the men stacked them in the barn.

There are pictures of me only because the pictures were taken with Josh's phone.  If I had had my camera, it would have been all pictures of the guys doing there thing.  Like the baling pictures.

Crawling on the hay stack.  The simplest things bring so much joy to children! 

Josh will throw in a grass bale when he loads the furnace with wood and the bale will keep the wood from burning up so fast.  He fills the furnace twice a day.  I'm not sure if he throws in a bale every time he fills it, but even if he did use two bales a day, this stack will last us a good long stretch through the winter!

It's a lot of effort and time to keep enough fuel on hand to burn the furnace, but we're not afraid of work!  And it's totally worth it financially to burn wood rather than LP to heat this old drafty farm house.  Josh definitely does way more than I ever do to keep it going and I (and our checkbook) very much appreciate all he does to look after us.  AND we appreciate Papa's help, too!