last updated 2.18.26
February 15, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Dug out my lumber pile this morning. I keep it covered so once the snow was removed I peeled back the tarp and rummaged around to find what I needed to build a quick little bunk in the house so I'll have something to sleep on until I'm done insulating all the walls. Once the wood stove gets here and I've dried everything out, I'm going to build a funky bed that I designed a few months ago, but I've been curious whether there would be enough room above it for a temporary bed if I ever have a guest. There is so that's cool. I was tempted to sleep on it tonight, but I'll be able to move back into the house soon enough. February 16, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Tapped the big maple, today. I guess I should start using up all the syrup the farm gave me if I'm going to harvest more. It's a little girly, but I made some candles, too. Well, I recycled all the ones I used over the last year. Sometimes there's lots of wax leftover when a candle burns out so I consolidated all of them into one jar, melted it down then threw a couple of wicks made out of string in it while it was still liquid then let it cool off. Works pretty good. February 17, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Took advantage of the mild weather and stained the wooden ladder rack. Much better. Actually, 30 degrees is typical winter weather. It just seems mild because it's been so much colder for weeks. Headed into babylon to get groceries and do some errands. February 18, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Prepped the house to run a vertical stove pipe for the new wood stove. I haven't been eager to cut a hole in my nice roof which was another advantage of building an rmh which wouldn't require me to. I opted to route the pipe up through the sundeck instead of the section with the expensive corrugated roofing. I'm planning on mounting my solar panel on the sundeck as well when I'm in travel mode, but there's plenty of room for a small chimney off to the side, too. I ordered the wood stove through home depot so I'll have to drive into town to pick it up. I'll open the box when I do and assess if I need to get anymore pipe while I'm there. Walked down to missLuna's. Well, sledded down and rounded up my 5 gallon buckets that I filled up with sand for her earlier in the winter. I'm going to need them when the sap starts running. I brought down some of my garden buckets that have holes in them and transferred the sand into them. The holes aren't very big so the sand didn't spill out. Fired up the motorcycle and let it run for a few minutes just to give the batter a little charge during the winter. Pretty exciting stuff. Just trying to keep busy. Poked around a little online, this afternoon, looking for some side work which I might entertain once the stove is in. We'll see. I'd like to haul my house out of here as soon as possible, but missLuna rented out the spot by the barn to the woman who owns the other tiny house so I'm sort of blocked in. When I started building mine down there, I measured the space from the side of the barn to across the road because I knew I'd need that much room to make the turn out of the field when it's time for me to leave. Now, that lady's house is there and she's never here. I'll have to ask if I can temporarily roll her out of the way, get my house out of here then roll her back when the time comes. I was hoping to come and go a little on a few test drives before hitting the road for good, but I'm not going to do all that shuffling every time. I'll cross this bridge when I come to it. Shamboozah texted me, again, so I'm going to head over to the farm tomorrow and grab my pork. It'll be nice to see everyone. They're having a volunteer day so I'll probably stick around and help out. Hopefully, they won't give me a hard time about not coming back. When I was looking online, I saw that they have a couple ads up to hire some more people. I really like them, but I can't do the non-profit thing. I need to work on a real farm. January 1, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Had a nice little reminder this afternoon that I'm not doing enough in the area of making changes. Nothing too major occurred, but the grand canyon still opened right up and down I went. I recovered fine by splitting wood for a couple hours which helped a lot. It happened because I had a little set back with my wood stove project. In doing some research this morning, I learned that I should have soaked the vermiculite in water before adding it to the cement which prevents the vermiculite from absorbing too much water away from the cement when you mix them together. Otherwise, you could end up with dry cement that's too crumbly. Not the end of the world so it shouldn't feel like it is. The only reason realizing that I might have to make the columns over again messed with me was because this required me to ask missLuna if I could store them in her house for a couple days to fully cure. My tiny house neighbor will be back to the property soon so I wanted to get them out of her place, today, thinking that I was almost done. Nope. I'm well aware of the trial and error proces when being creative and making something new for the first time. I've had to take a deep breath and start something over from scratch hundreds of times at this stage in the game. It just comes with the territory. What amplified this common occurrence was that it made me have to rely on another person. I have issues. When and why did I get it into my head that I'm not allowed to ask anyone for help? This is not a healthy way to live. To top things off, I got a call from missButterfly out of the blue this afternoon. She says she wants to talk to me, again, so she can clarify something she said when we last spoke a couple weeks ago. I have no idea what this is nor do I have any interest in finding out. She left a voicemail. I didn't call her back. I can't believe I'm still dealing with this person. I honestly don't know what to do about it. I've been more than patient and understanding with her. On a lighter note, we got a little snow last night so there was a pretty blanket of white covering everything this morning when I opened the door to go outside. Still psyched about having my dream truck parked out there. The bathroom door I finished making earlier this week came out great. I pretty much make all my doors from scratch. It's a tiny house thing. I unscrewed a small cabinet door that my father made for the downstairs bar in the house I grew up in and pulled it off its hinges when I was cleaning out the house a few years ago before they tore it down. My father had carved a map of the North and South Rivers in Marshfield on it which included a small "x" marking where our house was located along the river. It, also, has an old fashioned little wooden sailboat mounted to it and a piece of driftwood with a tiny cottage built on it like the one at Damon's Point. I loved looking at the door when I was a kid. I couldn't leave it behind. Now, it's enlayed into the outside of my bathroom door with an antique brass knob that I scored from that carpentry gig I did a couple winters ago. Very happy with it. As far as making changes, I know that my lack of progress in this area is not entirely my fault. I'm up against our whole system which has been composed to keep us all separated from, if not competing with, one another. It is one of the great advantages the powers that be have implemented for themselves. Add my personal abrasion to asking for help and I've got a major challenge ahead, but I still don't have a choice so something needs to be done. I should probably start with fixing my darn laptop because I have a feeling being able to type more efficiently compared to on this tablet is going to be necessary. To speed up the curing process, I cut the outer cardboard form with a utility knife and peeled it off the smaller column this afternoon before putting it in missLuna's house. It didn't look that bad. Pretty hard, not too crumbly. I still might redo them. There going to experience plenty of jarring when my house is rolling down the road. January 2, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Today was a good day. Haven't left the property since Tuesday (it's Friday), but I'm making progress. It's been very cold, but sunny in the mornings and afternoons. It was so cold last night that the pot of water on the stove was already frozen before I went to bed. Walked down to missLuna's this morning and grabbed the larger cement column to check how it was curing. I carefully sliced and peeled the outer cardboard form off it and brought it back to her house to dry some more. They seem to be hardening well. She moved both columns to her living room (where her wood stove keeps the house nice and warm) because she had a bunch of clients, today, so I didn't have to enter from the front door and walk through the room where she "treats" them. All I have to do is open the glass slider at the side of her house, reach in and grab them. Made some minor improvements to the ladder rack I built for the new truck. Happy with that. Getting bundled up and keeping myself busy outside all day works like a charm especially when the sun is so bright. My happiness just spills out of me even though I'm completely alone, but I know that this routine is not a permanent solution. I'm thankful that things are good because this is the best place to make positive change from. What this change is going to look like still remains to be seen. I should leave the property tomorrow and gets some errands done. I'll try to make some headway on fixing the laptop. I've tried several more times recently, but the tactics microsoft is using against its own customers is so disgusting that I don't even want to write about it. I'll figure something out. At the very least, I found a computer repair place that will pull all the documents off of it and save them to a flashdrive for 30 bucks. For 100, they'll fix the laptop so I can use it again, but either way I first have to find a notary and sign a legal document stating that the computer is mine so the computer repair place can't be sued by microsoft, the computer manufacturer or an imaginary previous owner if my laptop was stolen. I brought my receipt with me to the repair shop proving that I bought it brand new, but this wasn't good enough. It's insane. Writing and uploading html code to start a new year for this blog was a little difficult on a tablet. Ordered a new tonneau cover for my truck so that I can still keep my tools in the bed and out of the weather when the ladder rack is installed. This is all superficial stuff, but I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row. I need to head to Maine and transfer my old registration to this truck, register the motorcycle and modify the registration for the tiny house trailer to a higher gross weight with all the additions I've made to the house since first registering the trailer a couple years ago. I want to be sure I'm 100% legal while traveling. All it would take is some unhappy cop to ruin my day if anything wasn't . These things need to be done in person so I was waiting until after the first of the year to make the 2.5hr trip. January 4, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Headed into the strip mall jungle, yesterday, and got a bunch of errands done. Removed the remaining inner forms for the columns and took them with me so they could sit in a reasonably warm truck all day. I put them in the back seat and strapped them in with the seatbelt like a small child. #m to the l to the r Picked up another bag of vermiculite and tonight it's pre-soaking in a bucket of water. Looked at state park campgrounds in South Carolina and seriously considered loading up the kayak and motorcycle and heading down there for a week to build the rocket stove in weather more conducive to mixing cement, but first I need to drive to Maine and get all my registration tasks done. The 5 hour round trip will give me time to think about it. Tried, but didn't make any progress on fixing my laptop. Microsoft offers no customer service phone number that allows a person to speak to an actual human being nor an email address for people to write to. Tried calling a number that an google search provided, but it just turned out to be another scam posing as microsoft. Did reach one automated message that was legitimate offering to text me a link to the proper webpage that fixes log in issues, but it ended up being the same one I've tried dozens of times already with no success. If a person uses this option of having them send a link to your phone, you'll quickly discover that microsoft black lists the phone number you used so if you call back for further assistance an automated message plays that offers no options then disconnects you. Good times. Took the finished columns out of the truck this afternoon, gently placed them in my burn barrel and started a small fire inside them with cardboard and sticks to complete the curing process. I probably won't use them, but it's good practice. I'll make two more tomorrow and let them sit in missLuna's house drying while I drive to Maine. I've thought a lot about getting another dog. It's been years since my last buddy passed away. The major reason I haven't is because I'm not sure if it would be a responsible decision. To own a dog and take care of one properly, a person should have a support system and I don't anymore. Wah. It's about a 15 year commitment and chances are during that time something might come up that may cause me to be indisposed. I could get sick or hurt and brought to the hospital. What would happen to him then? I'd love to have one again, but I'm just trying to be smart about it. Even thought about reaching out to missFlowerchild to have more social contact in my life. I still spend way too much time alone. I've been contemplating hauling my house over to her little "farm" as she calls it for the winter. She has her young son, her sister and her sister's boyfriend living on the property as well. Her mothers there a lot, too. I've met them all and get a long with them,but I'm looking for friendship, nothing else, so that might be unrealistic regarding missFlowerchild. I'm pretty sure she'd want more. Again, I'm just trying to be responsible. This is why I never hear from her except for a couple short friendly texts around the holidays which I initiate. She feels rejected. I like her as a person and she's a smoke show, but I'm just not into the polyamorous lifestyle. She has plenty of projects I could help her with, but I think it would be selfish of me to propose living in my tiny house over there while not being interested in anything other than friendship. I don't know. I'll be driving right past her town on my way to Maine so I'll give that some thought, too. It may be time to create new connections rather than try to extract more from old ones that didn't work out. I'm going to try to keep documenting my days, as mundane as this is, sort of like how taking one single step over the course of miles and days can add up to a long journey on foot that reaches it's destination. I have a little experience with this. January 5, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Didn't get a lot done, today, but it was still a good day. I need to try to get to sleep earlier. I've been staying up 'til 12 or 1am. This is only because I haven't been getting enough exercise which is often the case in the winter so I'm not physically tired at the end of the day. I still have way too much energy when it's bedtime. I'll need to work on this. I've been sleeping until 9ish as a result and this is a waste of daylight hours. We got a little snow so I cleaned off the panels and the truck, took a nice hot bath, did a couple of little projects and edited last year's blog -lots of typos. Ok, I'll confess. I had a one man dance party, too. Maybe more than one. Oh, and my new tonneau cover arrived so I'll install that in the next couple days so I can put the ladder rack I built back on the truck and leave it on. I've been taking it off everyday when I'm not using it so I can put the old tonneau on to keep the snow out of the bed of the truck and off my tools. Pretty frickin exciting stuff. Tomorrow, I'll do a few errands in Greenfield then try to get a new batch of cement mixed and poured when I get back so it can dry while I head to Maine. I should be able to do both columns. I took notes on how many cups of cement, vermiculite and water each required so now I know how much to mix. The moon's been crazy bright lately. I walk outside at night and can see everything just fine. So peaceful. January 6, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Made the forms for the new columns, mixed and troweled the cement and vermiculite into them, but only had enough for the larger outer column so I carried it down to missLuna's to let it set. I guess soaking the vermiculite in water, first, changed the ratio. Emptied what was left in the bag into a bucket and it's soaking in the loft in my house, right now. The temperature is only getting down to the high 20's tonight so it shouldn't freeze in the house. I'll mix up some more cement, tomorrow, for the inner column. Reusing the round cardboard forms is a little time consuming, but it makes them easier to remove as the cement cures. They just don't hold their shape very well especially after I cut them in sections to peel them off. If I could find some large pvc pipe, that would work a lot better, but none of the building supply box stores around here carry anything bigger than 4". Maybe I'll look around for a commercial plumbing supply store in the area. I'll probably get away with reusing the cardboard tubes this one last time, but if I end up making anymore stronger pvc is the way to go. I used some for the smaller inner column and it worked great. I don't know if I'm going to make it to where I've always dreamed. The mornings are still pretty rough. I know keeping myself busy with projects during the day isn't the answer. They will help me accomplish what I'm trying to do and it feels awesome when I complete one, but they aren't going to improve my overall life. There's only one way to do that. I said that after I found a decent truck I'd have no more excuses for postponing making changes, but I seemed to have tricked myself into building this stove before I do anything else justifying it by the fact that it's winter and a warm fire would be so much better than a propane furnace. Old habits die hard. January 7, 2026, Turners Falls, Massachusetts Forced myself to get up early, mixed and poured the inner column, cleaned up the mess and put tools away, headed out to do some errands and now I'm parked by the river in Turners not quite ready to go home. I've got to come up with a way to find other people who want to do more than just go along with an unsustainable system. I looked at volunteering at the hospital in Greenfield, but they said I need to be vaccinated. If I don't agree with what our system is doing to us and our planet, maybe I'm not going to find the solution within this system. Duh. January 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Got all my registration stuff done in Maine, yesterday. Now, I can ride the motorcycle on the road if I want. Great time of year for it. Didn't make any plans to head south and didn't reach out to missFlowerchild as I passed by her town. I'm loving this break from the very cold weather we were having. The ironic part is that I turn on the heat more when it's milder like today because it requires less propane to keep the house warm. I'm a fool. Whatever. At least, I permitted myself to be comfortable for a change. Farm pancakes for breakfast. Farm chicken for dinner. Walked down to missLuna's this morning and checked the cement columns for the stove and they're still curing. Removed the inner cardboard on the larger one to open it up to the air. The smaller column still felt soft so I left the cardboard on it for another day. Installed the new tonneau cover on the truck. It's going to take some customization in order to still have a ladder rack as well. It's a little wider than the tonneau I had on my last truck so I had to notch out the rails where they were covering the four rectangular holes along the top edge of the bed that every truck has because that's where the rack drops in. Anyways, I'll finish it tomorrow. I don't watch the news, but it was hard not to come across the video footage of what happened in Minneapolis on Wednesday. I saw it last night. Didn't get much sleep. The incident, and there have been plenty of others in recent years, was so disturbing that I don't know how a person is supposed to go about their day and not be affected by it. One thing to keep in mind, possibly above everything else, is that it happened because people are losing control, first of their thoughts and emotions and then second of their actions. Someone is no longer alive because of this. Her death was not a result of self-defense. She was trying to get away. All the man who fired his gun had to do was step to the side. Even if she was disobeying the law by not cooperating with the agents, they could have simply gotten her license plate number, found out where she lived, given her a ticket or even arrested her at a later time. They didn't have to kill her. She was a soccer mom, not a terrorist. Was she wrong for driving away? That is up for debate, but what isn't is the use of deadly force. January 10, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Worked on the tonneau cover and ladder rack all day. Had to fabricate some additional brackets. You can make lots of hardware from a scrap metal pile with a grinder, a hammer and a big vice. Got it all done and happy with it. Forced myself to go out seeing as it was a weekend night. I often forget what day it is, but my attempt was uneventful. I tried. To know surprise, what happened in Minnesota is still bothering me along with some questionable behavior of our current president and administration. I'm not political and I don't take sides especially when both parties are acting out of justified unhappiness , but a few years ago, I thought of an idea to strengthen the sense of community in our country, yet I haven't done much to further it since then. These most recent events have pushed me to start doing something. January 11, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It was mild and sunny, today. Got a lot done. The second batch of columns are looking good. Peeled the cardboard off both of them and stuck 'em back in missLuna's to finish drying. Started replacing the rear differential cover on my new truck. This was something that I knew it needed when the guy sold it to me. It's not a difficult job and he had already bought the new cover and gasket; just hadn't gotten around to doing it. It can get a little messy because you have to drain all the gear oil out of the differential first. There's 14 bolts holding the cover on and some of them turned out to be very rusty. I was lucky to get them all off so I wasn't going to put the really bad ones back on. Got bundled up, fired up the motorcycle and road into Greenfield to buy all new bolts at the auto parts store. It was almost dark when I got back so I decided rather than rush I'll put it all back together, tomorrow. It felt good to know that I have a second vehicle if I ever need one and it wasn't too cold for January, granted I look like the pillsbury dough boy with all the layers I had on. Tomorrow's Monday so I'll head into town and resolve my laptop situation one way or another because I've got a lot of writing to do. January 12, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Good day. Got the rear differential cover installed. The mating surface needed a lot of cleaning to get pieces of the old gasket removed from the axle along with the rust and grime around the edges so it took longer than I expected, but it came out nice. The sun was warm and bright in the middle of the day so that made it comfortable. By the time I was done, I decided to work on a few other things here at the home base rather than head off the property. January 13, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Farm eggs for breakfast, checked the columns, had to mix up a small batch of straight cement to strengthen the middle section of the smaller one. It cracked right in half when I was gently sliding the pvc pipe out from inside it which was acting as the inner form. I didn't panic. Put all the pieces back together like a 3-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with a healthy coating of cement to hold it all together, rested it in a piece of its outer cardboard form like a long half-shell and carried it down to missLuna's where it's now drying. Placed the larger column in the burn barrel and started a small fire inside it to complete the curing process. Left it in the barrel to cool after the fire went out and headed into Greenfield to do errands. Called a different computer repair place in Amherst, but they wanted 90 bucks just to look at it so I wrote up a statement of ownership, got it notarized and went to the first repair shop in Greenfield. It only took him a few minutes to get all my files off the laptop and onto a flash drive. He offered to install whatever operating system I wanted on it for another $70, but I just paid him for the data retrieval and bounced. I had my own ideas. I'm ok with paying for a repair when I break something, but when it's part of a systematic attempt by corporations and businesses to extract money from people I don't like to comply. Headed to the strip mall jungle in Hadley to get the rest of my errands done. Picked up some more vermiculite and a piece of 6 inch pvc pipe which will work better as a form than cardboard sonotube. I still have one final piece to make before I can start putting my new rocket stove together. Grabbed some groceries at tj's and a couple of slices of pizza at whole foods. While I was eating, I used a few of the tricks I learned online a couple of months ago when I first tried fixing the laptop myself. Now that I had all my files off of it, I could completely reinstall windows which erases everything, but when it began a new set-up process and required me to connect to the internet like it did the first time when I bought it last spring and didn't know better forcing me to leave the mountains and the hot spring and drive back down into the little town in the Rockies , I didn't. Instead, I manually bypassed this part of the set-up process using a few keyboard shortcuts and created a "local account" which doesn't require the internet, a microsoft username or a password. I'm typing this on my laptop, right now. Finished the rest of my errands and headed back to the property. Pulled the big column out of the burn barrel and brought it inside with me. It came out great. It's so light! Yet, rigid like the cement version of a styrofoam tube. Might have to watch a movie, tonight. It's been a couple months since I've been able to. I still plan to hold microsoft and the laptop company accountable for their incompetence, but now that I can type again, I've got more important things to focus on. January 15, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts This evening, I lugged my big cooler into the house before calling it a day. The recent warm spell has been nice, but it'll be back down into the teens tonight. Bringing the cooler indoors doesn't always guarantee that my food won't freeze overnight, but it helps. I made sure that I poured the water I collected from last night's rainfall into my big aluminum pot so I can melt it down whenever I need some. I got caught a little off guard earlier this winter when I didn't remember to do this so one of my five gallon jugs still has a big ball of ice in it. Luckily, I don't use as much water in the wintertime so one jug has been plenty. The gutter on the front of my house works great for collecting water. I can always fill up a jug down at the barn if I need to, but catching rainwater saves me the trip. I, also, placed a pail of my last batch of vermiculite soaking in water just inside the slider down at missLuna's so that tomorrow I can make the final piece of the rocket stove, the batch chamber. This is where you feed in the wood similar to a traditional wood stove. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly. I'm just about out of castable refractory cement and none of the stores around here carry any, even the masonry supply who I called this afternoon so I'll have to order more online if I run out. I did some calculating and I think I'll barely squeak by. I've been thinking and writing about my community outreach plan for the last couple days and it's taking shape. I was going to head over to the library and spend the whole day working on it, but the field was so muddy that I didn't want to drive the truck across it and make a mess. It'll be hard as a rock, again, tomorrow. My plan isn't a new idea. I bought a domain name for it years ago, but creating it with the right perspective has been the challenge. Volunteering this winter was a good idea and technically this plan is a form of volunteering because I'm not going to get paid for it. No one will. My efforts, and anyone else's should anyone choose to join me, will be focused directly on people, not financial gain. It's hard for our brains to imagine a world without money, but the world has existed for millions of years before money was invented so if we want the world to be around for a million more, or even a few hundred more, we better find a way to bridge the gap between making money and being a good person because right now money doesn't care what kind of person you are and what's happening in the world right now is a reflection of this. January 17, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Came in from some night sledding a few minutes ago which then turned into a one man dance party. We got about a foot of snow, today. I went for a drive in the early afternoon during the thick of it wondering if I might find someone out on the road who could use some help getting pulled out of a snow bank. A little past time of mine during the winter. I keep a couple long tow straps in my truck. They work good for pulling people out of the mud, too. I used them plenty on the farm, this summer. Didn't come across anyone. There weren't many people out driving. Ended up buying myself a new sled and doing a few errands while in Hadley. The sled I bought last winter mysteriously disappeared while I was in Colorado. The weird thing is missLuna's neighbor who uses the hill by my house to take her grandchildren sledding, now, has a bright green sled. She didn't have one last winter which is why I bought a bright green one. Theirs were red and blue. Of course, I don't think they deliberately took it. She probably just assumed it was theirs. I heard the weather was especially windy last winter while I was gone so my sled probably blew off my trailer and one of the kids accidentally grabbed it. Why would they think it was mine? How many grown men have a snow sled? I used it a lot in place of my wheelbarrow to haul stuff over the snow back and forth from the barn when I parked down by the road last year. The whole thing's been awkward. No one else uses this hill out here in the woods. I did a little work for the neighbor last fall, but other than that I haven't had much interaction with her. If I'm being honest, I don't think the sisterhood of missLuna and her neighbor who is her best friend are very fond of men. In fact, I know missLuna isn't. She declared this to my face last fall then quickly back-pedaled a little and added "Present company not included." I didn't say anything. The very first day I moved here in the summer of 2023, I hadn't parked my truck and trailer 10 minutes before the woman came walking out of the woods right past where I was setting up. I didn't know who she was or where she came from. It's all trees and forest up here bordering conservation land. She didn't introduce herself, barely said "hello." My guess is that she was checking me out or maybe claiming her territory. Very awkward. This summer she dropped a metal lawn ornament off by the barn because she wanted me to weld it for her, but never spoke to me about it. Just left it there and told missLuna to ask me. She lives right across the road from the barn and walks through the field with her dog all the time, but doesn't say two words to me. I didn't have time to work on my own projects during the farming season so I didn't get a chance to do hers either. Now with my priorities revolving around keeping warm, I still haven't. The next time I use my welder which I haven't touched since last spring, I'll try to fix the rusty old thing for her which I believe is still sitting down by the barn. Anyways, I didn't feel comfortable asking her about the sled even though they've been using it right in front of me all winter long. Eventually, I had to say something to missLuna in a joking kind of way to see if she could do some casual inquiring. I figured it would be less confrontational coming from her. I told her to look for a couple of square holes in the front of it. She said that she checked and it wasn't mine, but I'm not really convinced. The sled came with a flashing light when I bought it, but I figured that this would only break so I took it off. The holes aren't very big. She probably thought I meant big holes like for a handle. It didn't sound like she actually asked her friend. The whole thing is so weird and I could care less about the sled hence going out and buying another one. I even considered buying the neighbor one, too. What doesn't sit right with me is not being able to say anything without the fear of offending someone. This is their little world which feels like its blanketed with a carpet of eggshells. As eager as I am to get out of here, I want to be as ready as I can be when I do so not saying "boo" about anything that they can't handle is what I must do. I've looked around the area for other options, but haven't found any yet. Other than this silliness, things are going awesome. Crushed out the batch chamber yesterday morning and it's been drying in missLuna's house for the past two days. I'll take one of the forms off it tomorrow to expose it to the air. I had just enough cement luckily so that was good. Did some laundry in the afternoon and washed my comforters and sleeping bag. Bumped into two folks who were part of the Native American crew building the mishoon this summer. I had my farm hoodie on which I think helped them recognize me from just some random white guy washing his blankets. Worked on my new project , both, yesterday and today. This starts with first introducing the idea of a new platform to the public on an individual level. People need to know that they are not alone and that there are a lot of other good honest people out there who feel the same as they do. I'm not a webmaster which is why I keep this blog so simple and straightforward, but I would like this new site to be more interactive so I'm going to have to learn how to write so more complicated code or find someone to help me with it. January 21, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Moved into the truck two nights ago. It was pointless trying to keep the house at a reasonable temperature in this kind of weather. It supposed to get down below zero later this week. Ordered some more refractory cement. The next step in building the stove is motaring the pieces that I've formed together. Seeing as it didn't need to be castable, I thought I could find some locally, but the only place that had some sold it for $16 in a cup smaller than what I buy yogurt in. I'm going to need a lot more than that so I'll have to wait until the 12lb pale arrives, hopefully by Saturday. Heard from mr.Music, last night. I'm going to build a collapsible bed for him. He doesn't have as many gigs this time of year so he recently got his cdl (commercial driving license) so he's working as a bus driver taking kids to their junior high and high school team games which sometimes requires him to sit for hours and hours waiting for events to be over. He's an ex-football player so he says it's been fun seeing his old stomping grounds, but he's a big boy and game after game starts to add up so his back needs a break from sitting so much. He asked me to design him something that he can temporarily lay across the seats when the bus is empty and then fold up and store when he's not using it. I sent him the plans to build it himself a couple weeks ago. They're very straightforward, but he's been working so much that he hasn't gotten the chance. Plus, he doesn't have all the tools. He was going to see if home depot would cut the plywood for him at the store. I've seen them do this for customers, but it'll be quicker and easier if I just make it for him. It'll give us an excuse to hang out for a little while. He's all the way in Fall River, Ma. Maybe we'll meet halfway. My new truck is only an extended cab rather than a crew cab like my last one so it's not as roomy in the back seat to stretch out diagonally. I can't fully extend my legs so I'm not getting the best of sleep. I could pull the rear bench seat out to make a little more room, but it's not really worth the trouble seeing as I'll be done building my new stove soon -hopefully. Sitting in the truck using my laptop to create the new website works fine when the sun is out during the day, but I won't turn the engine on just to stay warm after it gets dark, too wasteful, so I headed to the library in Turners last night which was nice and quiet. Took a bunch of photos during the day and used gimp to make a simple logo that represents people sticking together, no pun intended. January 23, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Got a lot done. Finished mr.Music's "briefcase bed" today. That's what we're calling it because it folds up flat no thicker than a briefcase. It's more like the size of a portfolio case, maybe a little smaller. Anyways, he wants me to build some more so he can sell them to other bus drivers. I guess there's a need for them. I'm not really interested in this. I enjoyed making it for my friend. It was nice to be able to work on something to it's completion. The rocket stove is coming along nicely, but it's a methodical step by step process slowed down by having to wait for the cure time of the cement. I finished the bed yesterday, actually, but decided to make a simple little handle for it so I ran to home depot this morning and grabbed the hardware I needed. Came out great. I moved back into the house the other day. Only spent two nights in the truck. The house is just more comfortable even with the brutally cold temperatures. As long as I'm bundled up and moving around, I'm fine. Cleaned up the interior of the truck some more, this afternoon. Of course, I cleaned and vacuumed it when I bought it. A small shower squeegy works awesome for getting pet hair out of carpet and upholstery, btw. That was a cool life hack I discovered recently. The guy I bought the truck off had two dogs. Like I mentioned, he's a fireman so he had a lot of extra components mounted in a custom console under the dash all the way down to the floor, a row of switches for plow and emergency lights, a siren and additional horn, a CB and a microphone with a loud speaker. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep all or some of it, but decided to give the whole thing the yank, today. I kept the CB, but disconnected it and stored it under the back seat. I can plug it in temporarily if I ever want to use it. Now, there's so much more leg room for my imaginary girlfriend who I've never met. #mlr Sewed up the driver's seat. There was a tear along the side of it which is very common in older vehicles. Pulled the deep cycle batteries for my solar system out of the shed on the back of the trailer and checked the water levels on them, but they didn't need any so I put them back in. Did plenty of sledding and made it almost all the way down to the road. The field flattens out when you get to the bottom so I made it as far as possible, but it's definitely a lot quicker than walking the whole way. The new website is coming along. I need to hurry up and publish it. I just want it to be reasonably concise and presentable so I'm writing up a few more pages then it'll be ready enough. I can always work on it and make improvements while it's up. I'm going to make little fliers, too, and hand them out. Heard from Queen Bee the other day about some paid time off that I never used this season on the farm so I'm getting compensated for it which was a nice surprise, I guess, and she was asking if they're ever going to get to read my book so I told her I'll send her a link to this new page when it's done. January 27, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I need to figure out how I'm going to finish making the mini-rmh. Storing the components in missLuna's house is no longer working. I need better access to them and a little more space. Every time she's there when I go to check on them, I have to have some type of disingenuous conversation which usually consists of her telling me yet another story about how she told someone to f-off. Charming. I don't want to be beholden to someone like this. Besides, her German shepherd sat on the batch chamber and broke it in two while it was drying so now I've got to repair it. The cement I ordered online arrived, today, and I just went and picked it up. It should be more than enough to complete the project and now that I have it I don't necessarily need to stay here and work on it. I can easily transport the pieces and the finished product in the back seat of my truck. So, this is what I need to decide. Where to go? Now that all the pieces are made, it shouldn't take too long. I might be able to finish it in a few days. Heading south is one option which is a little drastic, but the nice thing is that it doesn't require me tiptoeing around anyone's ego. I've contemplated asking missFlowerchild. She's all about bartering so I could do some projects for her while I'm there and it would be nice to see her. I'm not interested in anything romantic, but I like her as a person, yet I'm reluctant to propose the idea for the same reasons that have prevented me in the past. If she was interested in an actual friendship with me, not just hook-ups, she would've reached out all the times she was here in Montague visiting her sick friend. There's my carpenter cousin in Dedham. He's got a huge heated basement full of tools, a work shop and a weight room. That would be a great place to work on it and he'd probably be interested in what it is. I don't think he's ever heard of a rocket mass heater. A lot of people haven't, but he likes learning about stuff like this. I didn't hear from him or any of my extended family (or immediate) this Christmas so I've been sort of letting go of those relationships. I invited him out to the farm a couple times this summer when we had events, but he never came. My uncle called and left a message inviting me to their house for Thanksgiving, this fall, which was nice. I called him back and thanked him in a message of my own, but declined. Even though my uncle's a carpenter, too, they're all in the union and have a lot more money than I do and I always feel like a failure when I visit them. I still need to give mr.Music the collapsible bed I made him and he texted me before the big snow storm we just got hit with and offered to let me come stay with him if I wanted. He's a city kid and doesn't understand that out in the country is where I prefer to be regardless of the weather. Obviously, it would have saved him the trip of driving 2+hours to pick up the briefcase-bed so delivering it to him is an option. His apartment is pretty small and using loud power tools would probably be frowned upon and I might need to use the grinder when I fit all the pieces together. I think the most practical option is my cousin's. I could mend a few bridges while I'm there. My uncle (his uncle, too) lives right across the street so I could say "hello" to him and my aunt and hear about what's going on with the rest of the family. Sleeping at night would be an issue because I'd feel obligated to stay in one of their big houses and I don't feel comfortable about this. I'd rather stay in my truck. I know I'm ridiculous, but it is what it is. I guess I could lie and tell them I'm staying with friends nearby as dumb as this is. I need to accept that none of my options are ideal so I just have to suck it up and make the most of whichever one I choose. I'm lucky to even have options. Orrrrr, I just stay right where I am and use my darn furnace. Duh. It's twenty bucks to get my little barbecue grill size propane tank filled which when I'm using conscientiously lasts me between a week and two weeks in the wintertime. Just one of those tanks lasts the whole spring, summer and fall in the warmer months. I'd probably go through a tank or two keeping the house warm enough for a couple days straight to allow the cement to cure, but I'd be using even more fosssil fuel just driving to any one of the houses I've been considering. This is why I write about stuff. Sometimes the best option is the one I'm overlooking. February 3, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I prep grinded the concrete legs of the stove then mortared them to the base, today. Had a quick lunch then fit the batch chamber on top of the base and gently slid it up against the riser, the small column, and cemented them all together. My stove is turning into quite the little sculpture. Actually, it's turning out bigger than I expected so I might end up cutting some of the top off of it and shortening it when it's all said and done, but it'll do for now. Getting it up and running and making my house nice and cozy is priority number one and the bigger the column the more heat it generates. After missLuna's dog sat on the batch chamber and broke it while it was drying in her house last week, I planned on re-cementing it the next day, but when I walked down there to get it, the whole thing was destroyed. I'm assuming it was her dog, again, but she never said a word. Neither have I. What's the point? It was like a punch in the stomach, but I just resorted to plan B and used a ceramic chimney liner in place of the molded batch chamber I made. They happened to be the exact same thickness and diameter something I notice when I was at the masonry supply store a few weeks ago. I spent too much time making the forms and pouring the vermiculite and cement mixture into them to start over. It's the dead of winter. Right now, I need heat. The clay "thimble" which is what they call them in the industry is much heavier than my forms, but I can always make another lighter one down the line. Tomorrow is the big day when I carefully lower the larger column over the smaller one and fit it on top of the batch chamber then cement them all together. It'll basically look like a big boot. I already cut a 3 inch hole into the side of the large column and cemented the metal collar to it that the stove pipe will attach to. Anyways, I figured I should probably write. It's been more than a few days. Things are going well relatively speaking in my little world while the world at large seems to be getting worse which has been weighing heavily on my mind. During the past week, I've teetered back and forth regarding which of these worlds I should focus my efforts on. I've tried to do both. I write at night and work on the projects during the day. The wood stove is almost finished. I always know things are going happily when I can't help but spend a few minutes gazing at what I got done that day which is what I was just doing in the house before retiring to the truck. I moved back into this smaller space when the forecast informed me that the temperature was going to be -17 degrees on Friday night. I just recline the front passenger seat all the way back and pile three comforters, a wool blanket and a sleeping bag on top of me and I'm very warm. I only run the furnace in the house when I'm mixing cement or taking the next step in putting together the pieces of the stove. I'm done leaving anything down at missLuna's. That was a mistake and it slowed up my progress. Live and learn. Doing it this way, the propane has lasted much longer than I expected and I'm on the home stretch, now -fingers crossed. Drove to Worcester on Sunday which is about the halfway point between here and Fall River and met up with mr.Music to give him the collapsible bed. He loved it and has been texting me updates for the last couple days on how it's working out for him. The website is almost done, too. Well, it'll never be completely done. That's not its purpose, but it's at a presentable state to start handing out fliers which I'll print out when I head in to Greenfield, tomorrow. The previous two printers I've bought in recent years haven't lasted very long. The one I have now didn't last one year. I'm sure the way I live isn't easy on them. Hopefully, my living space will be a little more climate controlled very soon then I'll get another one. Of course, the website is far from how I'd like it, but this is not the time to be a perfectionist. This is the time to try to bring people together in a simple straightforward manner. February 3, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Had a little setback which took the wind out of my sails for the first half of the day, but I pushed through it and still made some decent progress. I discovered a mold infestation in the house and had to pull out the bed, matress and blankets and leave them outside. I was crawling around on the floor yesterday to grab something that had fallen back behind the bed and discovered that the underside was covered in black mold. I sprayed it with a bottle of mold killer which I happen to have because I live in humid New England and scrubbed it hard then wiped it down along with the base of the walls in that area, but some parts of the bed were so thick that a black liquid was dripping onto the floor as I scrubbed. Pretty gross. It's all still sitting outside in the snow and won't be coming back in. The bed was only temporary. I was planning on building something different and getting a new mattress once I finished insulating and paneling the walls. I just wasn't planning on starting that project, today. It must have happened pretty fast because when I put the new floor down in November I had to move the bed out of the way and it was fine then or I would've noticed, but with these crazy cold nights and running the heat during the day the drastic difference in temperatures created a consistent accumulation of moisture in the areas closest to the floor for mold to grow and spread rapidly. Oh well, I'll deal with it. The wood stove is done so once I run the stove pipe and hook it up, which I was hoping to do today, I'll keep it cranking until everything is dried out completely then I'll coat any wood that had signs of mold with a special paint formulated to kill the stuff. Once everything's dried out I shouldn't have anymore issues and the paint will make sure. There's about half of an inch of solid ice along the base of the wall where the bed used to be so I'll have to sponge that up as it melts. I'll, also, get a long gas hose and connect it to my propane furnace so I can move it over to that corner just to dry everything out quicker. Until the lower section of all the walls are insulated, condensation will keep forming every time it's warm in the house and freezing outside so the mold will come back if I don't remedy the problem. I was planning on doing this next anyways. I found a guy in VT who sells hard insulation at a decent price. He's over an hour away so I've been putting off making the trip until I was ready to start. I guess I am, now. I haven't left the property in a couple days and tomorrow's Saturday so I'll have to wait until Monday to go get the insulation, but I've got plenty of other stuff to keep me busy. I should start putting up and handing out the fliers I printed on Wednesday. I was just hoping to enjoy a little lull in the form of a warm fire at the homefront before immediately starting another big project, but it is what it is. Shamboozah texted me this week inviting me to come by the farm and grab some pork that they just got back from the butcher. He said it came out better than they expected. He's very happy that I convinced him to change packing houses. The place they used to use in Athol was pretty sketchy. Even the guys at the new packing house commented on how happy our pigs were and they see a lot of them. I guess all the work we did to give them a good life was well worth it. Fixed missLuna's water pipe in the barn that's been frozen for the last week. She's been complaining about it everytime I see her so I bought some rolled insulation when I was out the other day and cut up a cardboard box she had in the barn to fit around the pipe which stands about 4 feet out of the ground. After I finished the wood stove yesterday and it was drying in my house, I drove down to the barn so I'd have my tools with me in the back of my truck then stuffed the insulation in the box after taping some of that grey foam tube that they sell for water pipes to the 4 foot section. She had some, but it was haphazardly stuck on the pipe offering no protection from the cold. I found some more foam in the barn and taped that around the pipe as well so that no metal was exposed before surrounding it with the box full of insulation. Earlier in the week, I suggested that she buy a water pipe heater cord that most people who have barns or farms use in the wintertime. It's a short flat extension cord that heats up when you plug it in which you lay along a water pipe and tape it to keep the pipe from freezing which she had done, but this is pointless if you don't insulate around it. Even a blow torch can't keep a pipe from freezing in subzero temperatures. Anyways, the water was flowing before I finished putting my tools away and she was very excited. February 9, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I was pretty excited about being able to have a warm fire in the house, but I ran into another setback. Yay. You're supposed to start using something made with refractory cement gradually at first so the cement can cure completely from the heat. It doesn't take a long time, but you want to start a little fire in it with just paper and small sticks and let it burn for a few minutes then let it go out before starting a roaring fire. Having made this stove from scratch, I had no idea how it would perform so I decided not to cut a hole in the side of the house to run the stove pipe through before completing this last curing procedure so I carefully carried the stove in small little moves outside. It's fairly heavy and though I can pick it up and carry it, I didn't want to jostle all the cement joints that may not be fully cured yet. Last week, I built a small rugged platform for it out of 3/4" plywood, backer board (a nonflammable stone like material) and a thin piece of sheet metal in case I ever wanted to move it. Lifting the whole platform rather than just the stove prevents it's weight from becoming unbalanced. I'm just trying to be safe having put so much time into making it. Anyways, I got it outside and onto the porch and started a little fire. Within a couple minutes, the clay thimble cracked right down the middle. I heard the single distinct sound like someone had tapped it with a small hammer. Chimney liners like this are rated for over 2,000 degrees which a small fire doesn't even come close to, but as I learned yesterday the ceramic does not tolerate sudden changes in temperature. The liners are designed to heat up gradually from smoke passing through a chimney rather than go from freezing cold to a hot fire in the matter of a minute, even a small one with just paper and a few sticks. Live and learn. It wasn't my plan to even use a ceramic chimney liner. I was just trying to move forward after missLuna's dog ruined my batch chamber. Now, the best thing to do is to order more castable cement and repair the chamber or make a new one which will put me at least another week away from completion. As I was prepping things, last night, to run the stove pipe which needs to happen regardless, I thought of how I could make a quick rectangular batch chamber out of firebrick and call it done rather than making another curved one with cardboard forms. The reason this project has taken so long is because I was being creative and wanted to make a round stove which is a lot more challenging. I could have banged out a rectangular one with bricks in a couple of days like the one I already built when I was living in my yurt a few years ago especially now with all the practice I've gotten with mixing and mortaring. It would be a lot heavier than what I planned which was another reason why I created one from forms using heat resistant vermiculite and castable cement. It was a rough one waking up this morning. The grand canyon has been kicking my butt. I'm tired of sleeping in my truck and I'm tired of being alone all the time. Wah. At least, the sun is bright and warming it up in here nicely. It's a cold, but beautiful day surrounded by the snow and trees. I suppose I'll get bundled up, run the pipe and hook up the stove anyways. I carried it back in the house and positioned it where I want it to go, yesterday. I'm just going to start using it. All I can do is hope the ceramic tile doesn't fall apart completely before I can order more castable cement, repair the batch chamber and replace that section. After I carried the stove back in the house, I cut out a small section of the bathroom wall because I want the pipe to run through it before exiting to the outside. This way it gets warm in there quicker. Well, time to get to work. February 10, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts I'll have to head to the lumber box store, tomorrow, and get another sheet of backer board as well as some stove pipe sealant. I had my first fire using my new mini-rmh wood stove in the house, today, so now it's time to focus on the carpentry phase of the project. This is not as exciting as lighting a match and holding it to some crumpled up paper and sticks in the middle of my "living room" which always feels weird the first time you do it, but if I want to start using my new stove, some finish carpentry is necessary. Because I'm running the pipe through a wall and into the bathroom, I need to replace that section of the wall with non-combustible material, hence more backer board. Then I need to seal all the joints where the pieces of stove pipe fit together. I thought I might get lucky and be able to eat lunch by a warm fire in the house, this afternoon, but I had to keep opening the door letting in a lot of cold air because of all the smoke escaping through the joints in the pipe. Oh well, one more day and hopefully I'll be able to move back into the house. Oh wait, I have no bed. Well, maybe I'll, at least, be able to cook up some dinner in a warm house without needing to use the furnace for a change. The sealant will need a few hours to cure so lunch isn't realistic. All the smoke that filled the house wasn't a surprise because my set-up doesn't have a traditional chimney going straight up through the ceiling and outside. Hot air rises. One of the advantages of a rmh, rocket mass heater, in addition to requiring much less wood and being better for the environment by producing less air pollution is that you can pipe heat through different areas of your home rather than just sending it straight up a chimney and outside wasting all that heat like a traditional fireplace, wood stove or pellet stove. Most rmh's have a vertical chimney system, as well, but they also offer the option of running the pipe horizontally from the base of the stove into a bench, bed or other structure made from heat absorbing materials like stone, cob or brick. This is why they're called "rocket mass heaters" (rmh). The smoke is piped parallel to the floor through a large mass heating it up so that even hours later after the fire goes out the object will still be giving off warmth. Mason stoves which have been around for centuries have the same feature, but the mass they heat up is usually a giant over-sized chimney foundation. My friend who owns the farm in Easton where I worked a few years back had a beautiful mason stove built into the center of his house and one day in late fall a few of us from the crew walked over for lunch. He didn't have a fire going, but when I put my hand against the brick chimney in his living room, it was warm. He just smiled and told me that the heat was from the fire he had the day before. So cool. Well, so warm. Either way, I was sold. My little stove is only being piped a foot and a half into my bathroom to warm up that little space before popping through the wall and outside, but if the seams where the pieces of stove pipe connect together aren't sealed the smoke can escape which is what happened, today. I just wanted to give it a test run to see how everything lined up before making it all permanent. I need to seal the lid of the stove, too, another seam where smoke can escape. I designed a lid into the top of the stove so I can open it up and clean it out periodically which is why I'm going to use silicone sealant which can be easily cut and pealed off. February 11, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It's been a rough few days. No new reason for this. Just the same old deal. At least the weather was mild, this afternoon. It was in the high 30's and only in the 20's last night for the first time in weeks. I embraced this, turned on the furnace in the house and heated up a burrito while I put my tools away and cleaned up the big mess I'd made getting the walls ready for the stove pipe. Once things were reasonably neater, it was so nice to sit down and have a hot meal in a warm house that I didn't want to leave. I've missed it. February 12, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts Taking care of the last few steps of a project are often the slowest part. There always seems to be one little thing or another that comes up just before completion, but ignoring them makes the whole project pointless if not addressed correctly. When I was checking the label of fire proof sealant I bought for its cure time so I could finish installing the stove pipe, I discovered in tiny fine print that it was water soluble. Lovely. Sealant is for sealing out air and moisture. Not sure what the point of using stuff that can't get wet is. The driest wood you can possibly burn in a fireplace or wood stove still has a lot of moisture in it. That's just physics, not to mention the amount of humidity in the air in this part of the country so there's always going to be a little moisture accumulating in the stove pipe especially with it running horizontally so I can't risk having the sealant fail after only a short period of time. It was a little late in the day to drive all the way back into town. It'd be too cold to apply the sealant by the time I got back so I drove in this morning and got the proper kind from a different store. The stove pipe is installed and all sealed up, now. It takes 24hrs to fully cure so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try having another fire. I have to confess that I don't feel good about it, which is rare. When I finish a project, I usually feel excited, relieved, satisfied, maybe even, proud along with plenty other positive emotions, but not at the moment. I've accepted that I need to build another stove. I'm just praying that this one will be usable until I can. We shall see. I think the other reason that I don't feel great is that I've been putting off handing out fliers and working on the new website until I finished the stove. I seem to have a codependent relationship with my projects. I wanted to feel really good before I did any of this. With the new website and the fliers, I'm trying to invoke and embody positive change, not just complain about how bad things are. Believing that I can get back to the place where I feel really good like I have plenty of times in the last couple months, I wanted to finish the stove first. Being able to take a break from the extremely cold winter we've been having this year seemed like a reasonable objective. February 14, 2026, Montague, Massachusetts It's surprising how my mood can go from low to high by simply getting all cleaned up. Well, first I had to hike 1/4 mile through the woods and deep snow down to the brook to fill my 5 gallon jug. Physical exertion is a great way to get the endorphins going. I should have brought my backpack. Switching the 40lb load back and forth from one shoulder to the other slowed me down quite a bit on the way home, but I need the exercise so I welcomed the workout. When I reached the water's edge, well, where I thought the water's edge might be, it was fun making my way around the brook looking for a spot deep enough to fill the jug without falling in. I could hear the water running, but couldn't see it. The stream was completely covered by a foot of snow with a thick layer of ice under it except for one or two exposed openings where the water ran the fastest and the deepest which made it tricky knowing where to step in order to get close enough to fill up. Luckily, I've spent plenty of time at this brook during the summer so I worked my way over to the swimming hole where I had a general idea of what the banks look like hidden underneath the thick blanket of white. The water was plenty deep there which made filling the jug easy as I perched above on a log. I was prepared to dump it back in the brook if it didn't look clean once I could take a closer look at it, but it was nice and clear. Well, I completely struck out with my mini-rocket mass heater. It's sitting in a big pile of broken pieces on the back of my trailer. Whatever, I took a shot. Only wasted a few months and a couple hundred dollars building it. I ordered a small camping wood stove online this morning. It'll be here in a few days and take me a couple hours to install then I'll have instant heat. I've got to move forward on other projects. I'll take another shot at building the mini-rmh in good time, but I can't hinge it on being warm and productive. I'm stubborn, but not stupid. After my failure, I was pretty bummed. At least, the stove pipe sealed up nicely so much so that the heavy cement sculpture broke completely apart as I tried lifting it to carry it outside leaving the non-ceramic section closest to the wall still attached to the pipe. Got it all outside, swept up my mess, heated up the water, took a bath then cooked up some dinner while the house was still warm. It was nice having the extra floor space back with the stove gone. Tomorrow's another day and it's supposed to be not so cold. I remember many years ago during one of my first stints on the west coast I learned how Native American culture thrived in that area along the warm sunny beaches of what is now called California. The climate and natural surroundings were so favorable to human existence that art and other creative expression thrived there. This helped me understand that resourcefulness which is an asset when trying to simply survive becomes creativity when survival is no longer weighing in the balance. In short, when you don't have a care in the world, you're more likely to get inspired to express yourself artistically simply for the enjoyment of it. When trying to just make it through the day in one piece, it's best to focus on the basics like food, water and shelter. In my case, right now, shelter from the cold is a basic necessity. Once this is achieved consistently then I can get creative, again. It was compelling to observe all the large concave holes melted into the snow grouped around the base of the trees throughout the forest as I made my way to the brook earlier today especially closest to my tiny house at the top of the field only a few yards inside the treeline. There must have been more than ten of them in that one area. They told a story of the deer and how they curl up in a ball at night and sleep directly on the snow. That's hard core. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the product of the author's imagination and are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. |