Teehee, a bit of a silly one – the white stuff does have a tendency to bring out the excitable child in me but it’s kinda valid too…

For the last few days, we’ve a few inches of snow – as much as most of the UK ever gets really but since I grew up on a largely snow-free warm coast, I’m making the most of what we’ve got. It is, of course, an excellent entertainment source – snowballs, snowmen… I’ve also been watching it fall with lovestruck eyes, crunching about on it outside with glee and *repeatedly* commenting on how wonderful everywhere looks. Many many hours of free entertainment.

But what else is it good for? In rain-strapped places, it would probably be worth scooping it up from snow banks and putting it in a water barrel for its water content. You can also take advantage of its coolness – I remember when we were discussing saving energy someone said they pre-freeze items outside before putting them in the freezer, or turn their freezer off entirely, just using the big blue room and an insulator ice box for freezing stuff for a few days. Of course snow itself is a good insulator – is it possible to make a reverse hay box for freezing stuff and keeping it frozen?

Any other suggestions?

As I mentioned the other week, we had a woodburning stove fitted a few weeks ago. Because of some previous thoughtless building work, the chimney stacks are damaged – smoke leaking all over the place – so we had to have them properly lined.

The liner is a double skinned metal tube that is dropped down the chimney and attached at the bottom to the stove’s fluepipe. It’s also blooming expensive – and the fitters left the end-of-roll offcuts with us. We’ve got one piece about a metre/yard long and about 18cm/7″ in diameter, and a second slightly smaller piece (in both length and diameter).

What can I do with those leftover bits?

My first thought was the old reusing favourite – plant pots in the garden. We’ve got some old chimney tops already (left by the previous owners, currently home to my garlic) so it could be a bit of a theme. But that seems to be a bit of a waste of their potential – another thought I had was to save one of them to use when we finally get around to making a rocket stove.

Any other suggestions?

(Pic to follow when my camera is charged and I’ve put some shoes on ;) – still rather disorganised after being ill I’m afraid…)

Our woodburning stove – one of the things we’d been obsessing about since we saw the house for the first time in March – was finally fitted last week and boy, it’s nice. It’s a small one – for heating a single room rather than the whole house – but we spend most of our evenings in that single room so it’s fine, in fact it’s better than wastefully heating the whole house (either with a bigger stove or with central heating, as we used to do). The stove is also certified for use in a smoke controlled zone – we got a certified one not to blindly follow the rules but because it means they burn more efficiently with less emissions.

John’s dad is one of those people who knows whenever a tree is being cut down within a 10 mile radius so we’ve already got a big stack of logs – some seasoned and ready to burn, others fresh cut so will have to left to dry. They’re currently stacked on an old pallet (to lift them off the ground) and covered in a tarp but with all the wind and rain we’ve been having lately, that doesn’t seem to be enough, and anyway it’s not exactly convenient where it is at the moment so we’re thinking we’ll build a better wood store nearer the house.

I’ve not had to build one before but I imagine there are two ways of doing it – a top opening trunk or more of a workbench, with a solid top and either doors or a flexible plastic cover to the open front.

For making the former, I’m think we’d probably be best off making a frame out of timber then covering the side/making the hinged lid out of any flat pieces of wood to hand (for example, John’s dad has some salvaged old fence panels to hand and also some old school table tops), while for the latter, I’d probably look out for an old kitchen counter top for the surface — it would make a nice potting bench too. Any other suggestions or advice?

What about repurposing existing items of furniture? I guess a standalone wardrobe would work or a dresser – although they’d have to be painted/treated to protect them from the elements. Any other ideas?

Continuing our week of water themed posts, we’ve had an email from Chris:

Being a good green hippy, I’ve got two waterbutts in my garden, which I use to collect water for my garden. But now it’s winter my garden doesn’t need watering and the butts are nearly full even though it’s only November. I imagine I could use all the water now and they’d fill up again within a couple of weeks. Can you or your readers make any suggestions?

One answer might be to plumb in the water butts to feed your households non-drinking water needs such as toilet flushing and perhaps even laundry – not just for this time of year, but for use all year around when you’ve got the water to supply it. I really want to set up a greywater system, including rainwater, to feed the toilet cistern if nothing else but I suspect it would too problematic in this awkwardly tall house as the water would have to be stored two storeys below the bathroom – but if we have another toilet put in lower down in the house, I’ll definitely look into it.

I remember someone telling me at some point that rainwater is also good for cleaning windows as it typically has less mineral deposits in it than tap water (so will leave less residue) – but Googling doesn’t seem to confirm or deny that — anyone know?

Staying outside, you could use the water if you need to clean paths of stuck-on leaf mulch or cleaning out the greenhouse ready to shut it down for winter.

Any other suggestions?

With autumn slowly moving into winter, here’s some seasonal links from around the web:

• Here’s a great easy, trick for optimising compost from the fallen leaves – mow the leaves on the lawn along with the grass – the shredded leaves and grass clippings are a great greens/browns mix
• Speaking of carbon & nitrogen mixing, Throwback at Trapper Creek has written an ace article about making the most of homegrown fertilisers, specifically animal poop.
• A lot of us are thinking of planting garlic at the moment but Tomato Lady over at Little House in the Suburbs has been making paper out of the waste from last year’s braid.
• This, admittedly, uses more new resources than old – the only recycled bit is the bag – but this is a great how-to for giving a handbag solar power capability – perfect for mobile phone charging.
• And, if you’ve got a sec, vote for good friend of Recycle This’ Alison Bailey Smith’s Electra sculpture in the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce Green Art competition – Alison makes all sorts of awesome stuff out of reclaimed wire, often from old television sets. UPDATE: ooh! I completely didn’t see that another RT buddy Ann Ellis is also in the competition! Vote for her too!