homesteading 101 - banking a fire & straw

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Some of the earlier threads got me wondering how to really bank a fire. Should the coals be heaped in the center? Dumb question number 2. What is straw? Is it the remaining wheat stalks after harvest, or some grass grown specifically for that purpose. And why is it more expensive than hay?

Learning something new every day!

-- glynnis in KY (gabbycab@msn.com), September 29, 2000

Answers

Response to homesteading 101

Straw is what is left from wheat after you harvest the wheat seeds. Hay is grass that is dried and used for animal feed. There are many types of grasses that can be used as hay. Straw has next to no food value so it is not used for feed whereas hay is. Straw is primarily used for animal bedding or for mulching gardens. Of course, there are probably a million other uses for straw as well such as building houses and insulating things. Hay is not usually good for mulching gardens because it has so many seeds in it which can sprout and create weeds. Straw usually does not have much seed in it although sometimes it can. Hope this clarifies it for you.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), September 29, 2000.

Response to homesteading 101

I always banked the fire in the fireplace by placing another piece of wood on the coals and covering all of it, coals, wood and all, with the ashes from the fireplace. This works best with a piece of green, fresh cut wood that is about 4" thick and about 3 inches of ashes over all. Of course you have to have a pretty good bed of coals to begin with. Practice makes perfect. It took me several years to be able to dependably have coals left in the morning. In the morning when you get up, just rake the ashes away and lay some smaller pieces of dry wood on top of the coals. They should catch fire quickly. Then add your larger pieces of firewood and you have a fire.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), September 29, 2000.

Response to homesteading 101

Part of the reason straw is so expensive is that it's sold after much mark up at garden centers and "feed stores." It's much cheaper behind the baler if you can find some that way. The problem is that often straw can contain so much unthrashed wheat that your weeds are wheat plants. I know of a local operator of a U-pick strawberry patch who mulched with bright wheat straw. He lost his strawberry field but combined a nice crop of wheat. I hadn't gotten my own bed going at that time and it was murder trying to pick berries with all that beautiful wheat coming in. I think oat straw may be even worse.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), September 29, 2000.

Response to homesteading 101

Glynnis, Right down the road from me, Mr. Piles has straw for $2.00 a bale. It's clean and dry, not full of bugs either. We are just 45 minutes from you. Don't get the straw at the feed stores, it's $4.00 a bale, and it's so light. Hay down here is $2.00 a bale for grass hay, good hay, no fescue. Both farmers have thousands of bales. Our friend Gary went up to Shepardsville last Saturday and brought us 2 little does he bought to put in with ours, $40.00 each. One real nice nubian, the other a cute mixed nubian. Straw is NOT supposed to be more expensive than hay, but some people think it is and sell it that way, to homeowners for seeding their yards, they cover the yard with straw.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), September 30, 2000.

Response to homesteading 101

The price of straw is dependent on supply and demand -- here in NH, where hay is grown but grains mostly aren't, straw is quite a bit more expensive than hay -- people tend to use things like shavings and sawdust for bedding if they can. It's actually cheaper to use good hay for bedding than to use straw here (and the hay isn't cheap, either!). In a grain-growing area, I imagine that situation would be reversed. And straw is what remains after any grain has been harvested (except corn), not just wheat.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), September 30, 2000.


Response to homesteading 101

Hi Glynnis, Maybe you know this but no one mentioned closing all air to the stove for setting coals. We also used green wood or wet wood over the bed of coals at night, then in the morning used small spruce limbs to create a really hot, small, quick fire to burn out the chimney but hopefully not the cabin, then add your daily wood. On the subject of straw, our local grown straw is of poor quality, a very light bale and around $8.00 each. Straw from the States costs somewhere near $15.00 a bale, is quite large and heavy and a nice light colored clean material. Sawdust and shavings are available for going and picking it up with your truck. On this and other problems we encounter, I just remember that each location that I have had animals has had local difficulties, weather, availability, prices etc. Ravens Roost Farm in Alaska Maureen

-- Maureen Stevenson (maureen@mtaonline.net), October 02, 2000.

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