Fruit, Tank, Smoke

got another haul of wild blackberries when I went through town the other day... going to experiment with a bit of wine making.

 Did I mention we got a 4th water tank? that makes 20,000 gallons of storage capability.  The two at the top of the hill will be hooked up to rainwater collection off the future carport, so we'll have 100% free water supply.  The well will then be back up.

 Ripe Peaches! and the fruit looks good too!

 I've been thinking about my environmental impact with the earth oven... some would complain about us using wood as fuel to cook with, as it does put the carbon back into the atmosphere a bit more quickly than decomposition, and the smoke adds some particulate to the atmosphere that is also a negative... 

some might even try to make the argument about the 'limited resource" of wood...

Well, I can't argue much with the carbon thing, though geologically speaking, decomp at 5 to 10 years isn't really that big of a difference... and the truth of our situation is that we have an 'underbrush problem'; we have much more small sticks and brush than is healthy for any sort of forest, let alone the kind that tends to light on fire (and should, but hasn't for 100 years due to white people's insistence)

So, I want to at least attempt to address the smoke issue. Here's me with the typical bit of smoke coming out of the earth oven:

 Here's me with my new metal chimney I built out of an old stovepipe and cut some ventilation into... there's still a bit of smoke in this photo, but mostly, it's just clear coming out of the chimney.  The better draft allows for the smoke/particulate to be better burned up, cutting down on the air pollution.