500 Pounds of Kindling - Where to Store it ?

[gunDriller]

ANSWER - under the Living Room floor.


I had a minor windfall and got about a half cord of extremely dry kindling in the form of 12 foot long molding from a door factory.

Only problem was - nowhere dry to store it ! That 2000 square foot shop building is still a few years off.

I ended up creating a 'second floor' in the living room hallway, and stashed about 500 Pounds there. It was a Pain-in-the-Ass to haul it inside, making sure to not break any light bulbs or knock anything over - until I got smarter and started tying it into bundles. Once I got it into bundles, all I had to do was carry about 8 bundles of wood inside without breaking anything, no big deal :)


All in all I got about 800 pounds of molding / kindling. I thought I was just picking up kindling, but once I started handling it I realized that I was loading my truck with pieces of wood that I've paid up to 75 cents a pound for, in the form of molding pieces about 12 feet long.

I sorted about 1/3 of it, but that got old ... I was spending too much time on it. I said "screw this" and just stashed the wood unsorted, in bundles, under my living room floor.

It's a combination of mahogany, oak, pine, cedar (splintery), and maybe some Douglas Fir.


The sizes that I picked out as 'useful' are -
3/4 x 3/4
1 x 2
1 x 1
3/4 x 1/4

Anyway, all free, just cost my time and maybe $5 for some of the hardware I bought to build storage storage shelving.

http://s403998394.onlinehome.us/500_Pounds_Kindling.jpg

[MNeagle]

Now I am convinced you are a bachelor for sure...

[EE_]

Now I am convinced you are nuts for sure...

[osoab]

Why not cut it up in 2' chunks for handling? You are not going to burn 12' sticks.

[osoab]

Now I am convinced you are nuts for sure...

The skunk road kill thread didn't convince you of that? :D (no offense gunDriller)

[chad]

gunddriller, i love you man, but for sure you are single. i just showed this to my wife, and she is laughing her ass off :D

madfranks of j6p, pleas change driller's custom user level to "kindling in the hallway."

[MNeagle]

& stick a nightlight in that outlet

so at o'dark thirty you don't forget what's there & hurt yourself!!

[EE_]

Yeah, we love you man, but you are nuts.
Don't worry though, you are among good company! :)

[Neuro]

LOL WTF LOL! Man, couldn't you just build a box, with the plywood pieces you used for the floor, and put the kindling in the box?, and put a tarp around it to protect against the weather?...

[gunDriller]

just needs some carpeting !

glad i can stop stubbing my toes on that pile of wood now.

you can store wood outdoors under 3 layers of Sealed 4 mil tarp, and it will get damp. via condensing humidity. i tried it !

the only way i can think to keep something really dry, is to store it indoors.


i didn't exactly lose a few hundred pounds of tools last year, nature selected them to be my tools (no re-sale value because they're rusty.) i thought i had them stored super well (3 layers of tarps), but i kept noticing, lots of drops of water on the underside/ inside.

yeah, i think if i had some dry weather, and for example put bundles of 12 foot wood in a 10x25 4 mil tarp, with a cloth liner to prevent rips from 'sharp elbows' in the wood, AND gorilla taped it shut, you might end up with mostly dry wood.


along the line of Nuts, HERE YOU GO :)

http://s403998394.onlinehome.us/DSCN6226-chicken.jpg

"Oops, I just lost my Restaurant License"

i let the chickens free range inside the house once in a while. they do a good job cleaning up the kitchen floor, sort of like an Organic Roomba, but with one caveat - Roomba's are house-broken.

this one has discovered where the eggshells are. - that's when i took the pic. eggshells are like 'chicken crack' - they LOVE eggshells. it's one food that will help entice them back to the coop before sunset.

[chad]

ahahahahaah you rule man.

[mamboni]

The mice will sing your praises! Gundriller's MURINE CONDOMINIUM COMPLEX is now open for rental.

BTW, real men don't need kindling!!!

[osoab]

Hey Driller, why not store them up in your attic. Should stay dry and out of the way.

[BabushkaLady]

This is one of the funniest threads I've seen in a long time!

The chicken on the counter put it way over the edge! Thanks! :)**


* trash cans with lids work great for kindling.

[skid]

Gundriller's house looks how I imagine Ponce's house looks like (minus the 6 mil poly ceiling). You guys should move in together...

[Neuro]

The mice will sing your praises! Gundriller's MURINE CONDOMINIUM COMPLEX is now open for rental.

Obviously one can't count on road kill skunk and prolapsed cows for continous protein source. Hey Gundriller, don't take the chickens in any more for house cleaning, the mice will take care of it from now on, and you won't have to think about getting meat any longer, one mouse trap should be sufficient for a daily portion...

[gunDriller]

Hey Driller, why not store them up in your attic. Should stay dry and out of the way.

all good ideas.

but, no attic. well, there's an opening about 16" by 32", above a bedroom closet.

as far as the mice ... ground squirrels will have to do.


the chicken coop is about 60 feet from one of the bathtubs - the main bathtub i use, which happens to be - right next to the living room hallway where some of the kindling is.

starting just this last week, i heard a 'new sound' - "Stanza de Ground Squirrel Orgy". i figure the attractions might be water, and heat. i can hear the little guys running around and around the bathtub. it is creepy. i would like to record it, but it's not very loud.

i have been wanting to check out the crawl-space, this will give me a reason.


the ground squirrels have discovered that the chicken coop is a good food source, i guess. and they have obeyed the Ground Squirrel Bible (KJV 1610 ?), "Go forth & multiply, Ye Fellow Ground Squirrels." so i started bringing the chicken food indoors when the chickens are free-ranging.

i know what happens next. it relates to the concept of exponential growth. i'm about to go from having a small colony of about 20 ground squirrels to a larger colony of 100 ground squirrels.

i called the Humane Society - looking for a snake. Rat, bull, pine, corn - but not so big it will eat the chickens. i might put an old computer in a box right in the middle of the Ground Squirrel Region - to create heat, once i get the snake.


personally, i don't look at the ground squirrels as a food source. i do look at them as an energy source - for example, something you can use to generate electricity.

as far as HOW - aha, that is the secret ! :)


butchering an animal is a lot of work. the prolapsed cow and the roadkill deer (actually, the poor thing was alive with a compound fracture until the neighbor shot it - twice. he had a .38 in his truck. put one bullet into the top of its head. kept moving like it was alive. then another bullet. now i'd like to find out exactly what caliber. had to have been smaller than a .38 special, a .38 special has about 70% of the gunpowder of a .357 magnum.)

deer = education + 20 pounds meat.

cow = 2 days skinning, 250 pounds meat, 1 day washing & packing the meat. call it 3 8 hour days & 240 pounds, to make the math easy. so i got about 10 pounds of meat for every hour of skinning and clean-up & wrapping.


with anything smaller - even a roadkill raccoon - you would get maybe 2 pounds of meat, and it would take me an hour to skin it. 2 pounds of meat per hour.

plus i'm not yet a big fan of the free anatomy lesson.

so, how does the math work out for anything smaller ? i respect the Rabbit Lady in the Michael Moore movie, but at this point, i am REALLY looking forward to buying rib-eye steaks and getting some meat with FAT and MARBLING.

survival is good, but so is a good steak. Beefsteak would probably agree with that.


http://s403998394.onlinehome.us/DSCN6023_Chickens_E-Cycle2.jpg

For BabushkaLady & whoever else may like it, here are my e-cycling chickens.

for reasons i do not understand, they like to roost on top of old electronics.

[Santa]

I vote this to be the best thread of 2013. :)

[Dogman]

Ditto!

Def in the high hoot levels.

[Mouse]

You have achieved best in class japanese style Just in Time delivery system for breakfast. Not sure I want to eat there, but it is damn efficient looking.