u/StellarSpore

I went through what feels like a stupid amount of firewood this past season. 😅 Unless I got my piles mixed up, I burnt almost 7 cord. I have a newer, high-efficiency (non-cat) Jotul. The house is an older, 1,600 sq ft home that could use a bit more insulation (but not terrible), but it's reasonably well air sealed. I burn a hardwood mix of seasoned oak, maple, and birch. Stove keeps the house at 70-72 all winter.

Every time I ask, people say 2–3 cords... I don't believe it. I burn 24/7 all winter since I work from home. Not at all ashamed to burn in the shoulder season. I have a secondary oil burner but it rarely, if ever, calls for heat. Only hot water.

Just curious. Trying to figure out if this new stove is eating wood or not. Definitely more than my old vintage stove, but the new one is properly sized and the house is a lot more comfortable. Plus, I do have a strong chimney draft.

(sorry to be talking about heat when it's 100 degrees outside)

Finishing up all the exterior prep work this weekend and planning to buy a sprayer. I'm leaning toward the Graco Magnum X7 Airless. All exterior painting (siding, trim, doors, garage door, etc). I'd like to invest in something that'll last since I have a lot of painting ahead of me and will probably use it year after year while renovating my homestead.

Are there any others I should be looking at instead?

Airless, easy to use, easy cleanup, and reliability are priorities. Over spray is not a big deal in my setup.

Thanks!

Sorry this is long...I didn't quite know how to ask my question without context :)

I’ve got two 2-year-old rescues and we’re deep in training. Neither are ready for off-leash and with their prey drives, not sure they ever will be but we're going to keep working hard at it.

We’re super lucky to have a bunch of wooded acreage, so our daily walks are in the woods… but not on trails. We're bushwhacking. Think: trees, fallen logs, brush, streams... It’s basically an obstacle course. The dogs must walk in front of me for my own safety.

The dogs LOVE it. Highlight of their entire day. It's their time to sniff their cute little butts off.

They both do amazingly well walking individually but recently, I switched to walking them together. It's hilariously ridiculous.

I tried lots of different gear setups and settled on a single 6ft leash, with a 5ft splitter. Picture a really big "Y" shape. They walk 11ft in front of me. I can't go shorter with the splitter. I tried. It was a disaster. This setup has worked the best so far. Open to other ideas.

The issue is I need to train them to be aware of each other and walk the same way around obstacles, usually trees, while giving them ample space to move, sniff, pee. I am dodging trees and one dog is going left and the other is going right.

This is not a pulling issue. They reasonably respect lead length. We’ve been working on check-ins and they’re improving, but it’s slow going in such a high-distraction environment. They both know “this way” (look at me + come back to and move with human), but I don't need them to follow me. I need them to pay attention and follow each other.

So.....what skills should I be focusing on for this kind of walking? How do you even train for this specifically?

Would love any tips from people who’ve figured out how to not get clotheslined by their own dogs in the woods 🙃

I foster dogs, and I’ve had a couple recent escape artists who keep trying to dig under the gates that allow vehicle access to our fenced yard.

The fence itself is basically Alcatraz, but the gates are a weak spot.

I’ve got two sets of 6 ft x 6 ft chain link double swing gates, so a 12 ft wide opening total. There's two of these access points. Each gate has about a 4-5 inch gap underneath. The ground there is gravel and dirt.

These gates need to stay fully functional because they’re used for heavy vehicle access (oil deliveries, firewood trucks, tractors, excavators, etc.), so whatever solution I use has to accommodate that.

I did find the Dig Defence Original Gate Plate Dog Digging Deterrent which looks perfect but it is not rated for the weight of a standard vehicle, let alone the heavy ones that come into my yard.

Right now my best idea is just laying down about 12 ft of welded wire flat on the ground and securing it with landscape staples. My second idea is to have a metal fabricator make me a similar product to the Dig Defence and rated for the necessary vehicle weight but I can't even imagine how much that might cost or if that's even possible.

Figured I would see if anyone here has come up with a better solution. Thanks :)

Location: Maine, US.

Sorry for the long read. I guess I needed to vent :)

I have 12 acres, about 2 cleared and 10 wooded. It’s not huge, but for one person it’s plenty of work. I bought an old family homestead that had been sitting vacant for over 15 years, so everything was pretty run down. It was a big project to take on, but most things feel fixable with time. All I've wanted to do is be a good land steward, and go all in on native, but the mature invasive population is insane.

Asiatic bittersweet, Morrow’s honeysuckle, and multiflora rose are everywhere. Everywhere I look, there’s something invasive.

Over the past few years, I’ve put a ton of work into the 2 cleared acres. It will always take maintenance to keep them at bay, but going into my third spring, it finally feels manageable. This year I was able to clear or treat regrowth in just a few weekends. Still, that's a lot of work.

But my woods… I walk them every day with my dogs, and it’s my favorite place to be, but it also overwhelms me. There are huge swaths of bittersweet and honeysuckle, both mature growth and constant regrowth, and the bittersweet is by far the worst. It’s actively killing trees. Some areas are so thick I can’t even get into them.

Right now, all I really know to do is carry snips and a small collapsible saw on my walks and cut the biggest vines that are choking out trees, just to protect some of the healthy canopy until I can come up with a real plan. I haven’t even started on the honeysuckle yet. I know every little bit helps, but it’s obviously not a long term solution, especially at the pace I'm working.

I know I’ll never fully eradicate it, especially since I’m not seeing any management from neighboring properties, so reinvasion is inevitable.

The only approach I can come up with is loading up a backpack sprayer with glyphosate and triclopyr in late summer or fall and going after it carefully, trying to avoid the trees and any natives that are still hanging on. I’ve flagged some of the mature bittersweet and plan to do a pass with the cut stump method, but with 10 acres of woods, I don’t know how realistic that is.

I looked into goats last year, but I was honestly shocked at the cost to rent them. I’m not in a position to take on ownership right now, and I understand it’s only a temporary solution anyway. It might be something to revisit down the line, but fencing and winter shelter are hurdles I just don’t have the time for in the next year or two.

I’ve talked to a lot of people who are far more knowledgeable than me, including folks working in local conservation and land stewardship, and while I’m grateful there’s support out there, I often walk away feeling like I don’t have the time they do to even begin tackling this at scale.

I think part of this is just feeling overwhelmed. It honestly feels a bit hopeless some days. I guess I’m posting to hear from others who have successfully gotten acreage under control. I don’t know how to find the time to tackle it at this scale, and I worry about putting in the effort and not being able to keep up with maintenance, only to end up right back where I started.

Wanted to follow up on a post I made last month about getting a list of preexisting condition exclusions from pet insurance during the first 30 day refund period. This was really important to me so I could decide if the cost was actually worth it and plan ahead for what I might need to cover out of pocket.

It seemed like a lot of people in that thread didn’t realize this was even something you could ask for.

I asked pretty much all the reputable, independent pet insurance companies, but honestly I gave up because I couldn’t get a clear answer from them as to whether this is something they would do.

In the end, the only company that guaranteed they would do this was Trupanion, and they followed through. Within the first 30 days of my policy, they reviewed my dogs’ records and sent me a clear, straightforward document for each dog outlining exactly what is not covered.

I find it kind of wild that companies can sell insurance and not be required to clearly explain the limitations upfront. That's so ridiculous.

Trupanion wasn’t the cheapest option but they market themselves as not raising rates like other insurance companies do. I threw a message out in our rescue Slack and several folks who have been with Trupanion for a while said their rate increases were minimal, even for seniors. My vet said the same thing.

Just to be clear, I have zero connection to Trupanion. I’m just a dog mum who got really pissed off trying to get straight answers about preexisting conditions. If knowing exactly what’s excluded matters to you, just know that Trupanion will do this for you.

EDIT: Embrace will as well. See comments!!!

I upgraded from a vintage woodstove last year to a Jotul F 55 V2 (non-cat). I live in a very cold climate and wood is my primary heat. I run my stove 24/7 for 6 months. Was hoping to cut down on wood and do my part to reduce pollution.  

What I didn’t realize is just how strong my chimney draft actually is. Was never an issue with my old stove.  After measuring, I am at least twice what Jotul recommends, and that was during a relatively mild winter day. I imagine it’s much stronger in typical colder temps.

Got a new chimney cap to cut down on wind and added a manual damper, which helped a bit, but was never comfortable with how close I would come to overfiring plus the crazy amount of wood it ate.

Doing some research, it seems like a number of people with strong draft run into similar issues with this stove. Seems sensitive to strong draft conditions. Otherwise, the stove is amazing. Such a bummer.

In my case, I’ve got a few things working against me. The landscape offers no real wind break, so wind commonly hits the chimney, even with the new cap. The stove location and chimney height aren’t things I can change, so I’m starting to look at whether a different stove might handle these conditions better.

I got a killer deal on the stove and there’s a strong used market in my area, so I think it may be worth considering swapping out for something that can handle the draft better.

I've seen Blaze King mentioned as a better option for strong draft situations. I’m curious if anyone has experience with that or can suggest other stoves that would handle strong draft better.

Thanks!