August 25 - Summer Kitchen

I uploaded pictures in the wrong order. This picture shows a home made drying rack we made the day that our neighbor Tom came over with this enormous Puffball mushroom he'd found that morning while fishing along the San Juan River. He gave us half. We cooked some with dinner, and made a drying rack to dry the rest on for winter soups. Thanks Tom!

There's the mushroom. Huge!

Here's the inside of our summer kitchen. The wood cookstove is a small model that we bought new in Maine for around $400. It was our source of heat and for cooking when we lived in an earth lodge for a year at Earthways (Earthways School of Wilderness Living in Canaan, Maine). It isn't airtight, and runs best on small branches and wood split to 1" or so diameter. The oven is a little small, but it heats up fast. It's a perfect stove for a summer kitchen or camp.

There's the frame of the kitchen, not totally done installing the timber frame braces yet. Poles are Ponderosa that we cut with a two-person cross cut saw and peeled with a draw knife. The roof framing is store bought lumber. Roofing metal is more of that salvaged from the local roofer.