2nd Free from Power Day

Planning pays off! In the month between the first FFPD and yesterday I built a rocket/vita stove, gathered and dried fuel for it (see below), planned out my menu and gathered my food. Fortunately we had rain so I had some nice fresh water as well though I had a large reserve if needed.

In the picture you can see the stove with the pot handle sticking up, it demonstrates the low smoke operation of the stove, there is a high smoke startup period as with any gathered wood fuel the time it takes to get hot enough to have burned off most of the moisture is going to be smoky. Once it is going well there is minimal smoke as you insert more wood.  The fire chamber with breather holes is surrounded by stones for insulation, volcanic rock would be better but I used what I could gather. The fire chamber is set into mortar mix with a 3/4" gap under neath for air flow. The stove draws well but that space must be kept clear, it boiled 2 liters of rainwater from startup to boil in 20 minutes, once everything is hot it only takes about 12 minutes when water is added. As you can see the pot is entirely immersed into the stove, this keeps the heat along the sides of the pot for maximum effect. If the pot was another inch bigger it would work even better.
The stove worked a treat! It's a good thing because I never got time to test it. I boiled about 4 liters of water for my use for the day , most of which went to flasks for tea, it was a cold rainy, windy day after all. I boiled another couple of liters to cook eggs and sweet corn. I used a bundle of sticks and scrap wood about 8" in diameter and 12 to 14" long for all of that. I lit it once and did all my cooking for the day. Relighting would be significantly less efficient.

In addition to the eggs (sourced from a local farm a 3 mile walk away) and corn (from our organic box delivery), I ate about 4 ounces of organic muesli with organic rice milk (the two most heavily packaged and shipped foods of the day) and locally picked blackberries, one cucumber and 8 ounces of tomatoes from our organic garden, 4 ounces of tortilla chips (unfortunately non organic and packaged), about 6 small apples from a tree up the street, and finally some apple juice pressed from local apples at the local sustainable wood fair I took my nephew to. More planning is necessary for food requirements.

I did well on most other fronts, no electronic media, instead I read half of Rob Hopkins "The Transition Handbook". This is an excellent read for anybody wishing to assist their community in getting prepared for a post oil economy as it lays out the proven techniques used by many transition initiatives around the world.

I managed to avoid using any lights (except when I went into the cellar, same as last time, I need to plan for this better), I never turned on any heat and stayed either outside or in our solar heated conservatory all day, I used rainwater to wash and flush with, boiled for brushing teeth, I drank boiled rainwater, I borrowed my friend Graemes wind up torch for reading at night (I must get one before the next FFPD). I did purchase some local produced venison sausages for next days dinner. I would have skipped this except they have a stand at the fair and it is the only way to source them currently without a long journey.

So all in all a good day but more to be done for next time.