Before we moved to Alaska, I had cooked on a wood stove once, for practice. And it wasn’t even good practice either! Our wood stove in Washington was more decorative than for heating or cooking. Coming to Alaska was a huge change, as nearly everything we cook out here is done on the wood stove. We do have a propane stove that gets used occasionally, but I’m not particularly keen on cooking outside in negative temperatures. I’m also a relatively lazy cook. I used to be the queen of ‘let’s go out!’ rather than cooking dinner. Because of that, I love any fast and easy recipes and love one-pot meals. I cook quite a few things in just a 10″ cast-iron skillet (Amazon). I thought I’d throw together some tips and tricks I use for cooking on a wood stove. Continue reading “Cooking On A Wood Stove”
Category: Equipment
Homestead Uses For 5 Gallon Buckets
We use a lot of 5 gallon buckets here around the homestead, and we are always coming up with ideas we need more buckets for! Buckets of any size and shape are always good on the homestead, but here are a few inventive ways we’ve used our buckets:
Emergency Preparedness
Emergency preparedness is huge when you live as far from town, and the road, as we do. We ended up snowed in for nearly a month after bringing the truck back. Unfortunately, when we bring the truck back our 4 wheeler stays at our parking spot, so we’ve been without a vehicle this whole time. We prepared for the possibility of being stuck this winter before the snow came. These are the things we considered: Continue reading “Emergency Preparedness”
Fire Science
Today is the perfect day for this post, seeing as we hit -20 out here! Kyle was up stoking the fire several times during the night due to the cold and our undersized wood stove (we have this one). It keeps our place heated, but it’s small enough that fires don’t last overnight in it.
We are able to maintain a nice 70-80° inside as long as we watch the fire, even as cold as it is, so that’s been awesome!
Maintenance Matters
When you live off grid, and off-road, maintenance matters!
There is no way to quickly take something to the shop if it goes out, so keeping equipment in prime working condition is a must. Kyle and I realized how much it sucks to lose things we use often when our generator went kaput last week. We went without it for a bit while having it serviced. It wasn’t too bad, but the generator runs our cell phone booster so we can call out in an emergency. Not to mention I need the generator on if I want to Youtube how to fix it! Continue reading “Maintenance Matters”