Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[l kelly <elkel@hotmail.com>]

Hello,
Glad to hear, John, that you built a rocket stove-mass heater.
I cannot express how satisfied we are with the same in our home in Arkansas.  We burn so little wood now.

> Built a rocket stove- mass heater + oven for cooking and finished a
> compost toilet today. Soon the place will be liveable.
 
You say "+ oven" and I'm curious as to if you mean you integrated an oven into the stove somehow.  I can imagine it, perhaps.
I built a separate outdoor wood-fired oven (out of cob) and am also extremely satisfied with that.
  I've attached it to two cob stove burners (like little rocket stoves, only I cook over the heat risers) for summertime cooking.
The outdoor oven and stove are under a generous roof, so cooking in the rain isn't a problem anymore.
Before I finished these projects, I cooked over a mostly open fire and used a camp stove in emergencies.  Since the cob oven/stove was completed last summer, we've never needed the camp stove again.  It's wonderful, and very thrifty with fuel.
 
I find that the baked goods I can produce in the cob oven are an excellent supplemental income at our winter farmers market here.  In fact, I sell way more baked goods than produce in winter, even though I have a greenhouse and hoop house that produce plenty.  Right now I have parsley, cilantro, green onions, kale, beets, chard, lettuce, parsnips, snow peas, fava beans, the Mediterranean herbs, kohrabi, radishes and of course, lots of spinach.  Northwest Arkansas (zone 7a) can be kind for winter farming, though last year's negative degree lows pushed our limits.
 
We also use a sawdust composting toilet based on the Humanure Handbook http://humanurehandbook.com/.  I recently sent a sample of the resulting fine-tilth compost to our local extension office and will be glad to relay results when they arrive. 
 
Good tidings to all the small farmers breaking water trough ice and chopping wood.
Laura
 
Winslow, Arkansas