Solar Reuse

A bit here. A piece there. Working our way to be off grid.
Take one 106 year old house with no electrical wiring to the back door.
Add in a need for lighting and a deep desire to be as frugal as possible.
Throw in a few broken solar garden lights.
Top it all off with a Husband who has a MacGyver can do attitude.
Voila - enough light to come & go at night plus a slight deterrent to the criminal element.
There is one solar light hanging from each corner of the door jam along with a few @ ground level.
Parts list - solar garden light (these had broken off the metal pole used to insert them into the ground), one of those key chain circles that you put a key on, length of metal chain, & 3 very small eye bolts. A $ store plant hanger.
Directions - screw the 3 eye bolts equal distances into the top of the solar light but be careful not to Pierce the solar panel. The idea is to form a triangle. Think hanging flower pot.
Next connect the length of chain in 3 equal lengths.
Then add the key chain circle @ the end of the chains.

Bet you thought Solar had to be expensive & complicated, huh?


~~ pelenaka ~~

Rochester Stove Works - H. Bush

Sorry for not having a pic to go with this entry. I have the perfect one - a page from a 1847 City Directory from Rochester, New York, an advertisement for Henry Bush & Robert Harding's company Rochester Stove Works. Unfortunately it's in PDF & I'm pretty lame when it comes to jumping formats.
So here is the gist of the story behind that little parlor stove
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/2008/06/h-bush-rochester-new-york.html
I bought @ an auction -
Henry Bush of 228 Buffalo Street now West Main/Chili (chi-lie) Ave. shows up in the Daily American City Directory in 1844 as does his partner Robert Harding of 21 Kent Street. Occupations listed are stove makers.
Both vanish from the city directories around 1851.
Their company warehouse was on 34 Exchange with the foundry listed as Buffalo St. near the Genesee Valley Canal (Barge or Erie?).

Imagine that this parlor stove is in the neighborhood of 150 plus years old.
No cracks no holes.

Special thanks to Nell the librarian who put me on the right path.

~~ pelenaka ~~

07/18/2009 Co-Oppertative Foundry Rochester New York - unable to provide a pic but I ran across another small parlor stove stamped with Co-Oppertative Foundry. Simular design. May see if the Genesee Country Museum is interested in displaying my little stove since using it is a big no no.

Backyard Cider Making

This is our apple grinder not to be confushed with a Monkey grinder selling peanuts.

Husband believes that this is actually a grape crusher. I know that it was a good deal at the antique shop where we bought my coal laundry stove that I can on. The scent of fresh apples.

Point is that it works fairly well provided you have ready & willing manual power.

The apples this year are a mix of gala, rome, crispin, mac ... really anything we could get our hands on.

Ah fresh off the press.

Pity Mom won't let anyone but Husband drink it truely fresh. The rest of the family has to wait for pasturization. After that the majority is canned for later use ... like after Christmas caroling.

Making cider was a great way to spend quality time with both my husband and children on one of the last crisp autaum days on our homestead.

Here's a cute link on cider & perry making. Perry is Pear cider made some last fall for DH Hunting buddy.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scrumpy/cider/homepage.htm

File this under," Life in a museum - homesteading skills/green living/ability to tell future children a when I was young tale"
Not every teenager can say his Mom is soo whacked that she makes him use a scrub board & hand cranked clothes wringer to wash his socks. Lucky Son lucky. In my day I had to lug dirty laundry up hill both ways to a Laundromat.
This actually started as a way to prove a point. Something about generating too much laundry and if we didn't have an automatic clothes washer. Ended up as a skills lesson in the vain of " if you didn't have modern conveniences".

** No child was hurt in the making of this PSA **

Utilizing child labor opportunties a.k.a. the making of the sauce

Hauled outta bed early on a Saturday to a local upick farm, then made to live like a migrant worker for a few hours, all topped off an endless afternoon of prepping & cranking ...

many hands make light work.

Wait til apple picking (foraging/bartering) season is on.

Ah prego prego prego no ragu ragu ragu.

Try Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest, American Harvest, Benadin, and Perfect Mason to name a few.

Thank you Becca, & Sam,for the effort you both put forth that day!

Off to the side @ a tag sale

behind more than a few piles of books and boxes was an old cider press. The press screw frozen in place, wooden portions badly rotted but for the most part complete.

If the price was right might @ the very least might make a cute garden ornament. Besides I have faith in my can do man.

So long story short I piled it into my purse sized car last fall.

After about a week of daily fiddling with it the screw began turning. He's good, very very good.

Now almost a year later it's no garden decoration !

The frame is laminated fir, painted with krylon oil based enamel. Strong yet less weight than the original design. The metal portions scrubbed, sanded, and painted with H2O also by krylon.

Basket & both trays are oak, hand rubbed with food grade oil. The bands on the basket are aluminum with stainless steel fasteners. Unable to reuse the original bands too far gone.

The pressing plate is made from food grade cutting board.

Basket holds 1/2 bushel of chopped fruit. Simply line the basket with a loose weave cotton cloth boiled for 10 minutes then place coarsely chopped apples in. Sit a pitcher underneath the tray for a just reward of fresh apple cider.

1st $300 takes it in time for apple picking season here in Western New York.

Keeping the Milk Cold

This is a great example of an gas-absorption cycle refrigerator the Crosley Icy Ball Refrigerator in working order. The following link explains in detail the non-electric method of refrigeration better than I can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icy_Ball
It was a true excitement to see one as complete as this @ the Pageant Of Steam in Canandaigua, New York. My only regret is that I wasn't able to speak with the owners who were away from their campsite.

Urban Cider Press

Bought @ a yard sale for $40 late Summer 2006 this is a fruit press.
No maker's mark. Could be as old as 100 or as young as 30 years.
Perfect size for an urban homestead.
Good price for fugal homesteaders.

Pretty simple design just ratchet the donut shaped wooden plate down on top of the fruit. Juice flows out the bottom and out the pour lip.

DH spray painted the cast iron base red on a whim. Or to see how the iron will hold paint. Not liking the red. Doesn't match my stove.




Finished upgrade & the Handy Dandy Husband who always finds a way.

With help from my daughter here is what went into our new old fashioned press.

Sanding & painting the cast iron base with food grade black paint.

Removal, sanding, and painting of the metal hoops from the wooden basket.

New basket based on the old made from oak, varnished with a food grade product.
Pricey stuff but a bit went a long way so the rest can be used in making cheese presses.

New stainless steel hardware to replace all the old rusty nuts & bolts used to attach the hoops to the basket.

New donut shaped pressing plate made from a food grade plastic cutting board. This plate slips on to the center post followed by the ratchet thingy. The plate is actually what presses down on the fruit so I wanted a material that could be scrubbed & disinfected.

Last fall we made about a gallon & a half of fresh cider. Canned about 5 quarts of this.
Thank you Ball Blue Book 1943.
A good treat for Christmas breakfast and cold January mornings.
Would have had more but we were late gleaning apples loosing some great opportunities to heavy winds followed by hungry deer in late September.

Planning on advertising the press for cider parties in our city. Something along the lines of we will set up the cider press and supervise the pressing in your home. Not sure on what to price the "cider party" at but we are open to barter opportunities.
We also have an antique fruit grinder for the whole cider making experience, lol.
Grinding along with the washing of apples is the most labor intensive aspect of the whole process. Pressing goes by soo quickly.
Would also like to bring the press in at our Church's next family fun night this fall.

On a side note I won't let anyone drink the cider before I have a chance to pasteurize it.
Even after scrubbing the apples with nail brushes. Even after boiling the cloth pressing bag & the press it self.



This is a larger cider press I bought last spring @ a yard sale for $20.
No foundry mark.
Round wooden handle to turn the screw is gone. As is the pressing plate and most of the wooden base.
The frame is wet rotted & in pieces and when I dragged it home the center screw didn't even budge.
My blessing put some magical oil on it every day for a week.
Now the screw turns.
Every homesteading husband needs a winter project to make the cold dreary days go by faster.


~~ pelenaka ~~

Thoughly Modern Millie

Below is the pic of my 1934 Ice Box.
Unsure of the maker at this time as I still need to run a patent search on it.
If you scroll down to a previous post you can see what shape it was in when I bought it on ebay.
After much scraping, scrubbing, sanding, & careful nail removal it has been upgraded & painted.

Originally it was that '30's cream & green but I decided to go with white enamelware edged in black that I have soo much of like the milk pitcher & small wash basin. Also I have a gray & pink '50's kitchen so green & cream won't work.
Directly in front is a recent antique store find a small square enamelware container with a glass lid. Yes, we have a microwave. Also a small freezer. Just couldn't see given the power company more biz than we have to.



The ice box has a clear plastic tube connected to the drain under the ice tray. This tube feeds directly into the same plumbing as my clothes washer so no need to empty a catch basin or mop the floor when it was forgotten.
The shinny stuff under the ice box is insulation. Since my original plan was to restore a vintage '50's Hotpoint fridge figured there was no need to worry about laying tile.
That rise in the floor is an elbow of a huge plumbing pipe. My 1902 home wasn't built with indoor (upstairs) facilities. Hence some things tend to stick out or take detours.



To answer every one's question here is what's inside of my ice box.
Clockwise; ice compartment which holds 75 lbs. of ice. Since I don't have freezer space enough to generate that amount pictured is about 32 lbs which lasts for 4 1/2 days.
Compartment below is referred to as the dairy section. It is the coldest @ 36 -38 degrees. Holds eggs, cheese, homemade ranch dressing, mayo & butter.
Left compartment is broken down into 3 zones.
Bottom left; milk, juices, yogurt, anything that needs to be cold but not dairy temperature cold. Generally holds around 40 - 42 degrees.
Next shelf up temp is 42 - 44 so this holds fresh veggies, anything will will be eaten soon.
Next shelf farther up hovers around 46 degrees so this is for things like bread, commerical foods, & apparently a pint of my canned salsa.
Ice boxes work on air flow. The warm air moving in this case clockwise hits the top of the ice block cools which makes it fall to the next section. As the air warms slightly it raises passing the milk & fruits, then hitting salads, finally passing over the bread on it's way back down to the ice block. Yes when you open the dairy compartment you can feel a cold chill hit you feet.
The ice box is really two galvanized boxes one inside the other. It has a pine wood frame with sawdust wrapped in brown paper to form squares. Squares were then fitted between the two boxes.
The insulation factor varies thru out the ice box. Top & sides have the most @ R50.
Bottom around R 30.
Doors are the least @ R 12 - 20.
Reason being is that you can only unbend galvanized metal soo far before it loose it's shape.
Since I have no desire to learn how to use a sheet metal brake & my Dh's honey do list books him up to the year 2020 I made do.
The insulation was that pink foam & that foil bubble wrap stuff layered.

Learning curve was two fold.
One - make sure new ice is being made as it takes about two days to freeze.
Two - take out the food item quickly and if not completely used then return it quickly so it doesn't have a chance to heat up.

Since we eat from our pantry the majority of the food I prepare was canned either commerial or home canned. So if we have say baked chicken (frozen), carrots (home canned), peas (frozen), mashed potatoes (root cellar), salad & dressings/butter ect. (ice box).
Generally we don't cook with an eye toward leftovers.

Oh yea the beer on occasion's sits in the with dairy.

~~ pelenaka ~~

5/6/2008 The ice box is stilling going strong. Currently it's out on our unheated enclosed porch to take advantage of the cold (now cooler) weather. I still have yet to locate & buy a proper rubber gasket for all 3 doors. The foam rubber weather stripping is on it's last leg.
Great link on Crosley http://crosleyautoclub.com/IcyBall/crosley_icyball.html

~~ pelenaka ~~