50 days after placing my order, my new stainless steel g2 Firebox Stove finally arrived.
It’s a heavy stove, but very good quality and easy to light; even with damp wood.
Kelly wanted our first meal made with the Firebox, to be pancakes
And she was very happy with the end result.
I spent last weekend splitting logs. Some with this axe (the best axe I have used for splitting).
And the majority with this hydraulic splitter.
We drove the split logs to the cabin to dry ready for next year.
We wanted to have a fire pit at the cabin, so we decided to move the one we have at home, to the cabin. It is heavy, so I used 2×3’s as rails to move it on.
Once it was lined up with the trailer, I used two more to get it onto the trailer.
I used the same procedure in reverse to unload it at the cabin.
I built a simple bench from pieces of timber we had laying around at the cabin.
We have already spent a lot of time around the fire.
I have also completed the dividing/supporting wall in the shed, that I started building in the spring.
One side is a tool store and the other a wood store.
Using a wall mounting bracket for a T and some off-cuts of wood , I have made a holder for the Biolite solarhome solar panel.
The solar panel can be easily slid in from the side and removed just as easily when we take it home. The TV mount allows it to be moved and adjusted easily to follow the sun.
We were at the cabin last weekend. There are some beautiful autumn colours carpeting the forest floor now.
A moss that is wide spread in the forest is called Club Moss.
The yellow tops can be collected and left in a warm room over night they release a lot of spores which are high in natural oils. They have medicinal uses, but we’re also used historically to provide flash lighting when taking pictures. I demonstrated this to Kelly by dropping a cup full of spores over a lighted candle.
I have recently purchased a Biolite Solarhome 620 solar lighting and charging system for use at the cabin.
I was very impressed with the lighting it provided
And after I have tested it more thoroughly I will be writing a review.
Kelly made a boat while we were there which she wanted me to show everyone so here it is.
Thank you to everyone here, on Facebook and via email who have contacted me concerning the future of my blog.
I seem to have less and less time to get doing the things I enjoy and this means that I do not always have things to write about or photos to show.
I have decided to continue blogging but not on such a regular basis. Hopefully then when I do blog I will have more to write about and photos to show.
We have had Stoats in the garden before but we had never had a Weasel, until yesterday.
It is obviously finding enough food around our garden because I left it out some pieces of Moose meat but it hasn’t touched them.
On Saturday I went fishing for while. It rained the whole time and I never caught or saw a single fish.
I was very impressed with how easy it was to light and maintain a fire in my Bushbox with very wet wood.
Later during the day when the rain had stopped, myself and Kelly went on a long bike ride.
I am finding it difficult to find new and interesting things to write about on my blog and am now considering if it is time to take a break from blogging or stop blogging completely.
Not much has happened since my last post.
I went fishing for a while last Sunday
But I caught nothing.
I did however provide blood to the hundreds of biting insects that were there.
On Tuesday evening there were some strange cloud formations over the house, which I think looked like chanterelle mushrooms.
Not sure what they mean weather wise. Maybe someone could let me know.
On Monday night we had – 3 degrees here which is early in the season even for us.
The Birch trees are changing colour and dropping their leaves.
Last Saturday I went fishing with my boss from work.
We fished one of the local rivers. We fished with spinners and also flies.
We caught 9 Perch
And we caught 7 Grayling all of which were a little too small to eat.
I recently purchased a folding wood burning stove from Bushcraft Essentials
The model I chose is the LF titanium model and I also purchased a grill plate which is made from rust free steel.
The stove is hinged so you do not have to connect separate parts to construct it.
You can use wood, pellets or charcoal as a source of heat. With wood it took 7 minutes to boil a cup of water.
I personally feel that the hole where you feed the fire with wood, is a little bit too high up and it can be difficult to maintain a good burn. I had to place a piece of wood under to help lower the level of the fuel inside the stove.
It is good for frying, especially if you use charcoal
However I found that when I grilled burgers directly on the grill plate, they stuck to it and because the grill plate sits quite loose, the plate fell down into the fire when trying to remove the burger.
There are two trivets that you get with the stove which can be used if you cup or pot are too small to sit on the top of the stove.
The trivets can also be used to move the stove when it is hot
Or to hold a Trangia burner
Or to mount a Billy can on the stove as an oven
Kelly likes the stove because we can grill marshmallows
And make Smors
I have now ordered a Firebox Stove direct from the USA and it will be interesting to compare the two.
I decided to take the boat out on the lake on the 10th June. The weather was calm and sunny.
After I had been out on the lake a while, trees started moving and leaves blew onto the lake. The a whirlwind came onto the lake and pulled the water up to height of about one metre. Unfortunately by the time I got telephone out and started filming, the water had dropped.
Conditions were again calm, so I continued fishing.
After about 15 minutes this happened (note that I have no motor on my boat, only oars) .
It was a strange feeling as the wind pulled me out into the lake at the same time as it tried to lift both me and the boat out of the water.
I needed a door to the front of the boat house, but was a bit limited by the materials i had to build one. I found enough wood to build a frame.
I only had building plastic to cover the door with, but that worked ok.
Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the door once I had installed it.
The winch cable on my ATV winch had several broken cable strands which stuck in my hands when I used it, so before leaving for the cabin, I purchased a nylon cable instead and I changed the cables over during my stay at the cabin.
I used the ATV winch to move our outside toilet further away from the cabin. Here was its original position.
I build a sled to lift the toilet on to
and then dragged the sled with the ATV winch until the toilet was in its new location.
The boat house was leaning one way so I had to use a winch to pull it upright.
Once I had secured it, I raised the roof, and built a new inner wall (the framework at least).
and I installed a new boat winch inside the boathouse, to make it easier to get the boat out of the water.
A set of steps down to the lake had also rotted during the winter and were in need of replacement. So I started removing the old ones
and replacing them with new steps, but didn’t get this job completely finished unfortunately.
The last two weeks at the cabin, I had my car there and decided to drive to town and purchase a small trailer that I could transport the ATV on
but could also pull behind the ATV when collecting wood from the forest.
I still do not have Internet access so cannot continue to write about my time at the cabin.
Last summer I started repairing a small cabin that we have at home. This summer I have continued the project, replacing insulation and putting new boards on the outside.
Two weeks ago we had 4 days holiday in the area around Piteå which is by the coast.
The girls enjoyed bathing in the sea
We visited a place where Salmon migrate along the river
And there is a room a the side of this waterfall
Where you can go down and see under water and hopefully spot a Salmon swimming by.
We didn’t see any Salmon but Kelly enjoyed standing in front of the glass and pretending to swim under water.
I did some fishing but didn’t catch a Salmon, only a Perch
And this huuuge White fish
