Severe trouble ahead, community suggestions to get through

HEARTLESS wrote: Rockdoc and Sunshine, there is a specific link, but I can't get it to come up properly. Search wood stove top ovens then click Lehmans link, $39.95. Also, item number is 62CC0.
Edited one last time: Reviews say it doesn't work well on wood stove except as warming stove.

Thanks for the information. After looking at and reading the reviews it was as you noted not very good for on top of a wood stove. I see the bottom inside appears to be somewhat elevated thus leaving a substantial space between it and the stove top. I expect it is what creates the problem. I've read about some primitive designs that required elevating the oven half an inch or so and that that worked well. Clearly good insulation of the oven is a must. It may still be worth having this as a warming oven, though it appears to be rather small. I'll continue to do more research.

Or how about building this $20 beauty for baking bread?

http://small-scale.net/yearofmud/2009/0 ... and-pizza/

Science Chic wrote: Even if you don't agree with the "green" portion of this initiative, what they are endorsing is exactly the same thing we've been talking about here - building a self-sustaining, creative, taking-care-of-itself community that is prepared for economic troubles, basic energy supply troubles, and weather/climate induced problems. Scraping some of their ideas might not be a bad way to go...

SC, while I love the IDEA of transition towns, when I've looked more deeply into them I've been a little disappointed. I'm a little turned off by their somewhat pollyanish approach to the future. You'd find few that would welcome participants who owned guns for protection, for instance, and I wonder if such towns wouldn't become more targets than havens in a real "excrement contacting the whirling blades" scenario.

On the other hand, groups that tend to be more realistic about, uh, security issues, also seem to be unstable and frankly, scary. Most of them have put so much emphasis on guns and defense that I doubt they could do much else. Of course, they'd eat well of MREs for a while, but what then?

I wish there were a happy medium, where you could find people who are BOTH into sustainable agriculture, self-sufficiency, low-tech skills AND at least willing to admit that in a collapse situation it might be necessry to actually defend yourself. Yes, with guns. That you actually know how to shoot.

http://www.choosingvoluntarysimplicity. ... g-cook-sto Another interesting site, but it appears to really get into full cooking and baking with wood, the kitchen wood stove is the key. When it gets cool enough to justify a fire in the wood stove I'll get some temps with my Fluke digital infrared temp sensor. If I can get surface temps of 400 or greater, it should simply be better heat transfer to the oven to get bread baking temps.

AV, you are so right with the transition towns comments. I think many folks up here are gun owners, but never speak of it. Regarding sustainable agriculture up here, I think it is greenhouses not gardens due to short growing seasons. I personally have greenhouse envy as we haven't made one yet, but plan to.

AspenValley wrote: Or how about building this $20 beauty for baking bread?

http://small-scale.net/yearofmud/2009/0 ... and-pizza/

We talked late last night or early this morning about dong something like this in conjunction with an outdoor passive sola greenhouse. I think we will pass on that for the moment.

I view MREs as good for your 72 hr. car kits.

AspenValley wrote:

Science Chic wrote: Even if you don't agree with the "green" portion of this initiative, what they are endorsing is exactly the same thing we've been talking about here - building a self-sustaining, creative, taking-care-of-itself community that is prepared for economic troubles, basic energy supply troubles, and weather/climate induced problems. Scraping some of their ideas might not be a bad way to go...

SC, while I love the IDEA of transition towns, when I've looked more deeply into them I've been a little disappointed. I'm a little turned off by their somewhat pollyanish approach to the future. You'd find few that would welcome participants who owned guns for protection, for instance, and I wonder if such towns wouldn't become more targets than havens in a real "excrement contacting the whirling blades" scenario.

On the other hand, groups that tend to be more realistic about, uh, security issues, also seem to be unstable and frankly, scary. Most of them have put so much emphasis on guns and defense that I doubt they could do much else. Of course, they'd eat well of MREs for a while, but what then?

I wish there were a happy medium, where you could find people who are BOTH into sustainable agriculture, self-sufficiency, low-tech skills AND at least willing to admit that in a collapse situation it might be necessry to actually defend yourself. Yes, with guns. That you actually know how to shoot.

This is precisely what SG and I are delving into. We intend to obtain a rifle to augment the Glock she owns now. However our immediate focus is on preparing for self sufficiency. It's all positive. If the worst case scenario does not happen, then we will still benefit from having chickens and growing veggies, and baking, etc.

I believe the limit for greenhouses not requiring a permit are 200' sq. in Jeffco and 120' sq. in Park.

HEARTLESS wrote: AV, you are so right with the transition towns comments. I think many folks up here are gun owners, but never speak of it. Regarding sustainable agriculture up here, I think it is greenhouses not gardens due to short growing seasons. I personally have greenhouse envy as we haven't made one yet, but plan to.

I was up all night designing our passive solar greenhouse. I'm looking at a 13x32 foot footprint with the north side buried into the hillside. We also came across the idea of using plastic gallon milk cartons painted black, filled with water and stacked on shelves along the north wall for stabilizing night time temperatures in winter. Something that seems counter intuitive is that larger greenhouses tend to be more stable temperature wise than smaller greenhouses. I understand there are permit issues with Jefferson County, but when times get really tough the number one thing to bear in mind is surviving first and somewhere down a long ways in numerical order is where permits come in.