Rocket Mass Stove

Ive mentioned this before, but this is such a neat way to heat that I wanted to make an entry just for Rocket Mass Stoves and include the best videos and links I have found.  

Paul Wheaton from Permies.com demonstrates in this first 2 minute video just how efficient the Rocket Mass Stove is.  You see this video frame here where this lady has her face over the flue pipe.  The heat and fumes from the flue are warm not hot and very clean.  I hope you will explore the videos at  Permies.com.  It is one of my favorite sites!

 

Efficiency is the key to heating a green house.

This simple low tech stove with exceptionally high efficiency is something anybody could build.

Why do we continue the spend thousands on air tight stoves that pollute and burn more wood?

http://tinygreenlove.blogspot.com/2012/02/amazing-rocket-mass-heater.html

Below is another favorite video educator.  Rob Torcellini shows the details of how he built a Rocket Mass Stove to heat his greenhouse.  The same stove could heat your house.

Add a self feed bin for pellets!  This is how Rob did it.

Rob has taken the Rocket Mass Stove to a very sophisticated level. His excellent engineering skills and preparations while building his green house have payed off well.

Hear are some more ideas

Ive included this video because it demonstrates the effectiveness of a rocket mass stove

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Aquaponics Transplanting weeds wild rocket

Sometimes I wonder what normal people might do if the weeds in their front lawn were getting so high that they were lowering local property values, but they were too delicious to cut down.

Our front "lawn" is made up entirely of weeds that we normally diligently mow to a controlled inch or so in height. This year, quite a bit of it is wild rocket.

Mowing the lawn swells amazing.

Weve been enjoying it so much this year, that I decided that I should grow some in a more controlled fashion. Perhaps even in the new aquaponics grow bed. Im not sure if weeds will enjoy the happy plant habitat of a constant flood grow bed. Even if they dont go into the grow bed, Ill at least grow it behind my shed or something. Somewhere out of sight anyway.

The problem is, the front lawns collection is going to seed. I want the seed, but its not quite ready to collect. So they are getting too tall and ratty to pretend they are simply between mows. That coupled with the fact that by a bizarre twist of circumstance, in the last few weeks, we went from a one car household to a three car household, all makes the front of our house seemed a little neglected. The natural habitat of cars you dont use is of course, the front lawn.

The result is I collected a bucket full of weeds.

And transplanted them to my aquaponics system.

Its quite an odd feeling seeing such fully developed weeds in an aquaponics system.

It might have been a first if not for the fact that a few years ago, I lovingly transplanted something that I thought was a lettuce, and even more lovingly watched it grow into a thistle.



I just looked up "thistle" and it turns out they are food as well.



120 Things in 20 years learns something new every day. (at least)

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Aquaponics Shell grit seed raising bee and gecko visitors

I found a little helper in my shell grit seed raising trial.

This gecko is tiny!












I also found a bee.

Thats two now this year I think.

It left soon after I saw it visit my freshly transplanted wild rocket.

But my bee came back a little while later.

At least I think it was the same bee.

It certainly looked and behaved like the previous bee.

She looks busy.







120 Things in 20 years is now a bee keeper. I keep a bee.

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