This is our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life (Hebrews 11:8-10) along the narrow way (Matthew 7:14), even the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16), submitting to the Bible as a light unto both (Psalms 119:105). It is our prayer that these documented moments in our earthly time benefit whom God might choose to edify, but ultimately that God glorifies Himself through them.

Month: December 2014

Community Singing – December 2014

Once again, we are grateful for the opportunity to sing together the Psalms as a fellowship! This is the next set of Psalms from the psalter we use:

Psalms 35A-37F

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Psalms 28A-31G

Psalms 32A-34D

It is always our prayer the Lord glorify Himself through our lives and through these singings, and we pray He might grant His graces to His Church through this means of grace!

— David

A House – Update XXVIII – Wood-Burning Cook Stove

All along we have planned for our main sources of heat, for warmth and cooking, for the house to be wood burning stoves. Graciously, both Sue and my parents have been very supportive of us in our living out here, and in one of the ways from one of our parent sets was an offer to buy our cook stove for us. Wow, what a very nice gift! After much research by Sue, we chose a Kitchen Queen 380.

It has been sitting in the house for quite some time now, but with the ceiling almost complete and winter getting close, it was time for me to get to work getting it installed. And here is the process!

Here is the external pipe base installed in the attic:

Stove Pipe Base in Attic

And the back and sides of an insulation barrier. Based on a video I saw on the web, I chose to just put up OSB around it to keep out foreign matter. The front piece, not shown installed, was installed next, which had a little gap at the top to allow for air flow (which I’ll mention more about below with the starter section):

Stove Pipe Insulation Shield

Here is the base installed from inside:

Stove Pipe Base Installed

And something someone left up there. I suppose I should go retrieve it. 🙂 :

Peering Through the Stove Pipe Base

Next was to cut the hole in the roof. Needing to find the center of the hole, and not having a plumb bob, I used a tape measure on a string:

Tape Measure Plumb Bob

And here is the hole drilled:

Looking Up Tape Measure Plumb Bob

The external stove pipe requires two inches of spacing from combustible material, so I drew the circle appropriately:

Roof Stove Pipe Cutting Circle Drawn

And cut out the metal using tin snips:

Cutting Roofing Metal for Stove Pipe

And then used the jig saw to cut through the roof wood:

Roof Stove Pipe Hole Cut

And here is the roof hole ready:

Stove Pipe Base Form Roof Hole

The external stove pipe is held in place with a collar, so I needed to further prepare the roof metal to receive the collar:

Metal Roof Ridge Cut Out & Side Cuts

And I had to cut the collar piece to form to be able to slide into place:

Stove Pipe Collar Cut to Form

And here is the collar in place and caulked:

Stove Pipe Collar in Place & Caulked

Something needed to be done to cover the hole in the ridge left by the circle cut, and so I took a piece of left-over collar flashing, bent it and placed it, and caulked it in place:

Metal Roofing Ridge Hole Cover in Place & Caulked

And here is another view of the collar installed:

Another View of Stove Pipe Collar

After getting the collar in place, we had some storms heading through, so I duct-taped a plastic bag to the collar and put a step stone on top, which actually ended up working, even through a severe storm we had which knocked over one of our fruit trees:

Step Stone Covering Stove Collar in Roof Opening

Continuing on to the actual external stove pipe itself, because I’ve worked with it before, and because the base, cap, and collars come in a kit, I went with triple wall for the external pipe; and here are the two main pieces snapped together. I think I calculated I needed seven feet total (it needs to be high enough so it is far enough away from the roof so as to not be disturbed by roof turbulence), and to make it easy, went with two four-foot sections:

Assembled Triple Wall Stove Pipe

Originally, I was going to skip using the starter piece, because it is very expensive and I thought not really needed for pipe installation; but after doing further research, I discovered the holes in it actually filter air up between the walls of the piping to help keep it cool, so I thought that might be important; and so, we purchased it, and here is a stock photo of it:

Triple Wall Attic Starter Piece

I also added some wire mesh to help keep the birds out of the stove pipe cap:

Bird Nest Wire in Stove Cap

With this much pipe in the air, I figured I needed to secure it to the roof with guy wires, and I thought I would use plumber’s tape to make a “collar” on top, fastened with self-tapping screws:

Guy Wire Holder Installed on Stove Pipe

And here are the guy wires attached to the collar:

Stove Pipe Guy Wires Attached

With the stove pipe ready, and the starter piece attached too, I hauled it up to the roof and placed it in the collar, with Sue in the house telling me when the starter piece was set into the base hole. Then Sue joined me on the roof to continue with the installation, and William our cat thought he would join us too (he’s really good at scaling the ladder and hopping up onto the porch roof now — here, I think I helped him get up on the upper roof):

Triple Wall Stove Pipe Place in Roof Hole

For attaching the guy wires to the roof, I used eye hooks which I tried to make sure got screwed into a truss to hopefully secure them more strongly. And I added adjustable hooks for future changes to guy-wire tension as might be needed:

Stove Pipe Guy Wires Attached to Roof

Here Sue is helping level the pipe:

Leveling the Triple Wall Stove Pipe

And here it is originally in place:

Triple Wall Stove Pipe in Place

In tightening down the guy wires, the tension bolt on the plumber’s-tape collar pulled through the plumber’s tape. Hmmmm…hadn’t seen that one coming:

Guy Wire Stove Pipe Holder Broken

So I repaired it by closing the broken gap (I might have had to add some new plumber’s tape, but I don’t remember) and putting the tension bolt in another place. I added more fastener screws around the collar too:

Guy Wire Stove Pipe Holder Fixed

After that, I realized that the stove pipe was kind of jack-knifing at the pipe joint, and so I loosened the tension on the guy wires, straightened the pipe, and added screws to the pipe joint:

Stove Pipe Connections Fastened by Screws

I then re-tightened the guy wires, re-leveling as I went. There’s a running joke out here about not giving David the level, as I have a tendency to spend too much time getting it exactly correct, and I have had to learn to let go of that some, but….. when it is level, it is niiiiiice! 🙂

More Triple Wall Stove Pipe Leveling

With the triple wall in place, I needed to caulk the collar, using high-temperature, silicon caulking:

High Temperature Caulking Around Stove Pipe Collar

And also caulk the storm collar, slid into position over the collar opening:

High Temperature Caulking Around Stove Pipe Storm Collar

And I caulked the screws into the pipe holding the guy wire collar, just in case:

High Temperature Caulking On Guy Wire Pipe Collar Screws

Finally, here it is, reaching up to the sky!

Triple Wall Stove Pipe to the Sky

Then, it was time to head on inside. I planned to use step stones under the stove, but wanted to put them on a plywood base to hopefully help disperse the stove weight more evenly across the subfloor and double floor joists I put in this area:

Stove Step Stone Plywood in Place

And then I placed the stones:

Stove Step Stones in Place

The stove has been hooked up to a dolly since we moved it into the house, and Sue and I were able to get it to tilt back on the dolly so we could move it. I tried pulling the stove up onto the stones using the dolly, but couldn’t get it to roll up them. Here, Sue is maintaining the lean while I do some prep work:

Holding the Cook Stove on the Dolly

I added 2×4 wood pieces on the far side to keep the stones from sliding, and then made a little ramp, which worked nicely:

Stove Step Stone Ramp

And here it is with the free end resting on wood blocks.

Cook Stove on Stones on Wood Blocks

After doing some quick tilt back and single block removing maneuvers, so the stove wouldn’t come slamming down onto the stones, we needed a way to gently lower it, and we used the car floor jack, which worked great!

Using Car Floor Jack to Lower Stove Side

And here it is in position on the stones!

Wood Burning Cook Stove in Place

Next was the internal stove pipe, which is installed male end on top sliding into the female end below. At first I thought this would be wrong (after I had installed all of the piping!), but after investigating, it is correct — the smoke doesn’t come out the sides and is actually apparently sucked up the pipe with it this way; plus, it keeps the moisture inside the pipe and not dripping down the outside.

Here, I installed the damper in the first piece above the bread warmer of the stove:

Stove Pipe Damper Installed

And here is all of the pipe installed:

Internal Stove Pipe Installed

I used an adjustable section for the top, which slides into the top static piece:

Adjustable Stove Pipe Section Moved into Place

And then adjusts upward around the male end of the starter piece which sticks through the external stove pipe base:

Stove Pipe Adjustable Section Ready

We also received a water warmer for the stove, and here I’ve prepped it with the piping, cap and valve:

Preparing Wood Burning Stove Water Warming Tank

And here it is in place:

Wood Burning Stove Water Warming Tank in Place

And here is our first fire! Apparently, at least the first time, and some say at the beginning of each season, you’re supposed to light three to five light fires, letting it fully cool in between, to season the cast iron of the stove, which apparently can crack if it gets high heat before doing that:

Our First Wood Burning Cook Stove Fire

We look forward to eventually having the community over on cold days for meetings! And to maybe be warm during the really cold days around here. We have used a propane Mr. Heater Buddy since about the beginning in our very un-insulated camper, which has got us by, and we are very thankful for that; but maybe we’ll be a little warmer now. 🙂 And it’s hopefully one further step on getting less world-dependent.

We are very grateful to the Lord for Him allowing us a wood burning cook stove and to be able to have it installed now. And thanks much again to the Folks for this gracious gift, and the continued support from all our parents!

— David

Garden – Spring 2014 – Update II

Just recently our Spring garden wrapped up for the year, and so we thought we’d show the progress since our last update in July:

Shortly after that blog post, I believe, all of the zucchini plants pretty much dried up. The corn didn’t fare too well, but here is one ear we received — not too appetizing looking, but the corn was an experiment and tasted just like corn! 🙂

Sweet Corn Ear

However, through the Summer, with the green beans really slowing down, the turnips continued to do well in the mulch garden beds, even though I didn’t manually water them:

Garden 2014 July Turnips

And the okra started to take off too!

Okra

In September, here were some turnips I pulled to give to the piggies:

2014 September Turnips

And with things cooling by October, the green beans started taking off again:

Garden 2014 October Green Beans

While working on the house from up on the porch roof, Sue showed me some more October beans:

More Garden 2014 October Green Beans

And some turnips!

2014 October Turnips

By mid November, here is what the gardens looked like:

Mid November 2014 Garden Green Beans & Okra
Mid November 2014 Garden Tomatoes

But, the cold was coming, and we covered with blankets as much as we could, which was almost everything. However, after several nights, most everything didn’t make it:

Okra After Freeze Nights
Tomatoes After Freeze Nights

…except for this late-germinating zucchini. But, a few weeks later, this even succumbed to the cold:

Late Germinated Zucchini

And here is the last bean and tomato haul after the freezing nights:

Final Green Beans & Tomatoes Haul

And a final, nostalgic look at the gardens with the blankets hanging to dry:

Final Look At Garden With Drying Blankets

And finally, the Lord also granted some pecans again from our pecan trees!

2014 Pecans Haul

We are very grateful to God for His gracious and merciful provisions from the garden this year, the successes and failures, and learning more about gardening and mulch garden beds. We look forward to the next growing season, if the Lord wills it to see us to that point — the season of new life after the time of cold and death, much like a cold, dead soul being brought forth in new life by the work of the Holy Spirit.

— David

Thanksgiving 2014

The Lord was gracious and merciful again to allow us the opportunity to gather together as a group for our Thanksgiving fellowship meal for 2014! We thought we’d share some of the sights…

Before the meal:

The Men Outside Before Thanksgiving Festivities
Preparing for the Meal
More Preparing for the Meal
Ladies Fellowshipping Before the Meal
Young Folks Before the Meal

The tables:

Beautiful Thanksgiving Table Settings

And the food goodnesses! Thanks to the ladies for always preparing wonderful meals!

Main Meal Table 1
Main Meal Table 2
Dessert Table

Enjoying God’s provision of this daily bread and the fellowship He’s allowed us to have:

Eating the Thanksgiving Meal Together
More Eating the Thanksgiving Meal Together
A Young One and Her Mommy
A Snowman Delectable

After the meal, someone brought what I guess is called Trap Ball, where you set a sack-type ball on the end of a small teeter-totter device, hit one end with a paddle, which pops the ball up in the air, and then the idea is to hit the ball past everyone without it being caught on the fly. Lots of people participated!

Community Game of Trap Ball
More Trap Ball
Still More Trap Ball
And More Trap Ball Again
Some More Trap Ball
And Yet More Trap Ball

And finally, we continued on in John Owen’s works’ volume “The Glory of Christ“, which we’ve been at for several years now (we have just started the first “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” which is on pg 349):

Fellowship Sermon After the Meal

Once again, we are grateful to the Lord for allowing us this opportunity together, for His infinite graces and mercies, and His provisions both spiritual and temporal. May He always glorify Himself through us in whatever way He might.

— David