FUEL and FOOD

Every once in a while, I go on a prepper binge. I can't help it. Opportunities just present themselves and I am just compelled to take advantage of them. I started seeds for a dozen Kale and 43 Utah celery this weekend with my really cool worm compost (mixed in some sand to aerate it also.)

Both of my neighbors on either side of me where cutting down or cutting back their trees this weekend. I ended up with a large palm tree, cut into logs, an entire eucalyptus tree (they pruned it back to practically the nub) and a good amount of a gum tree.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the leaf pile comes out about 8 feet from the wall, 10 feet across, and that's an 8 foot high fence in back.

The leaves are going to be stripped from their branches, dried and mixed in with newspaper pulp to create fuel briquettes. Once formed, it takes them about a week to dry out, so it's a project for sure! I've already started shredding newspaper, I just found my bottle jack in the garage, now I just have to buy a set of 2x4" wood, a 6" and 4" piece of PVC pipe, and create my very own Petersen press.

If you Google fuel briquettes, especially the ones from the UK, you'll see how great they really work. I was amazed that so many people in the UK use them as their primary source of heating. I watched this one guy make it an annual project with his entire family, and I went, "hey, there ya go." The Brits use a newspaper briquette maker similar to this one called a "4 Paper Log Briquette Maker." Theirs are usually a solo variety, but for my purposes, for $29, one which makes four logs at a time would be really great.

My DH after about an hour of trimming down branches (that's the wood pile to the left) said "only you would go scavenge wood on this magnitude."

No dear. I'm not the only one !