The little stove that could.

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Wolves-Lower

Wolves-Lower

New Member
Oct 26, 2007
154
Northeastern Iowa
Wow...what a year it has been.
2008 will go down in the books as the most difficult, and most productive (in the sense of rebuilding a home) in my life.
June 11, 2008 record floods in the Midwest destroyed my lakeside home.
After an agonizing time I decided to for-go any potential buy-out from FEMA and rebuild.
Of course, there was no way I was rebuilding at the same level. So I jacked my house up and now I live in the trees.
There is nothing slower then rebuilding after a flood.

I hooked my little stove up in early September when my house was finally let down on its new foundation. It sure did take out the chill on those Saturday mornings durring construction.
Little did I know it would be till December 5th when a new modern invention called ELECTRICITY would return to my humble little cabin.
In that interim that little stove burned anything I thew in there, and only returned beloved heat. It was not picky, 2X4's and old barn boards cut up, plywood...it was all just dandy.

Now that I am starting to settle in for the finishing work it makes me reflect on how difficult it must have been for our forefathers who heated only with wood, and lit there nites by Oil and Candle.

The little stove that could made my house a home durring this crucial period, and I am thankful I had the resources and the knowledge to put it to use.
 
wow!! glad everything turned out ok, man. can't imagine what that would be like. thanks for the post and good luck the rest of the way!!
 
Well thanks for posting...I enjoyed reading that.
 
Looks like all that woodpile chasing downstream paid off. Good to have you back in the land of lights w-l. Stay warm and dry!
 
Wolves-Lower said:
Wow...what a year it has been.
2008 will go down in the books as the most difficult, and most productive (in the sense of rebuilding a home) in my life.
June 11, 2008 record floods in the Midwest destroyed my lakeside home.
After an agonizing time I decided to for-go any potential buy-out from FEMA and rebuild.
Of course, there was no way I was rebuilding at the same level. So I jacked my house up and now I live in the trees.
There is nothing slower then rebuilding after a flood.

I hooked my little stove up in early September when my house was finally let down on its new foundation. It sure did take out the chill on those Saturday mornings durring construction.
Little did I know it would be till December 5th when a new modern invention called ELECTRICITY would return to my humble little cabin.
In that interim that little stove burned anything I thew in there, and only returned beloved heat. It was not picky, 2X4's and old barn boards cut up, plywood...it was all just dandy.

Now that I am starting to settle in for the finishing work it makes me reflect on how difficult it must have been for our forefathers who heated only with wood, and lit there nites by Oil and Candle.

The little stove that could made my house a home durring this crucial period, and I am thankful I had the resources and the knowledge to put it to use.
Click to expand...
Wolfman, sorry to hear about your misfourtune, but glad to see you are the rebound. I hope things progress smoothly for you.

Regarding your comment about our forefathers who heated only with wood. Interesting that you say that. Just a few days ago I was contemplating how incredibly tough it must have been to survive winters when all firewood had to be felled, cut, split, and hauled by hand. Add in the quantities required by the inefficient burn methods and the need to also grow your family's food, and it's amazing people even bothered to inhabit parts of North America. Every spare hour must have been spent getting ready for winter! I also think what the firewood operations would have been like in a large city like NYC up until the advent of modern heating methods. Can you imagine how many men were required to haul firewood into the city to heat all those buildings?
 
Sounds similar to my family's summer, fall and now winter. My parents own a cabin on the Cedar River and we also saw record flooding. In 1993 the Cedar reached a level of 19.2 feet and we managed to stay dry but just barely. Well 2008 turned out a little different the river reached a level of 31.2 feet and we got wet, real wet and muddy too. Pretty much the only thing we were able to save was the shell of the cabin some of the windows and the old Jotul #8. Wolves-Lower I feel your pain when I read that you just got your power back we also struggled with no power and no water, makes clean up kinda hard. Thank goodness last winter my Dad and I bought 2 3500 watt generators real life savers. Our cabin is situated in approximately 500 acres of river bottom timber to say its in the boonies isn't much of a stretch. Once the main clean up was done and the cabin was weather tight the focus turned to the Jotul #8 as we didn't know when we would be able to replace the furnace, the checkbook can only handle so much. (no federal bailout for us) We dismantled the #8 wire brushed everything inspected the chimney and gave her a new coat of stove black and fired her up boy what a good feeling after such a long summer. We have a Warm Morning wood stove that is out in the shed and it needed a little more work, all new chimney a sand job and new stove black. We used the heck out of both stoves this last weekend and they did a good job keeping our deer hunting party warm. Ahhh maybe life can finally get back to normal.
 

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Regarding your comment about our forefathers who heated only with wood. Interesting that you say that. Just a few days ago I was contemplating how incredibly tough it must have been to survive winters when all firewood had to be felled, cut, split, and hauled by hand. Add in the quantities required by the inefficient burn methods and the need to also grow your family’s food, and it’s amazing people even bothered to inhabit parts of North America. Every spare hour must have been spent getting ready for winter! I also think what the firewood operations would have been like in a large city like NYC up until the advent of modern heating methods. Can you imagine how many men were required to haul firewood into the city to heat all those buildings?
Click to expand...

Being soft...no I can't imagine!
Winters back then had to be a family push. There must have been no such thing as "Free Time".
They would probably get a good chuckle out of us.
When I get all my photo's together of the before...the lift..and the after I will post them to share.
I enjoy this site, and get good information.
But what's best is I know there are others that think the way I do.
Winter is most certainly here now in Iowa, and if I had to give up the "Way of Life" in the woods on the lake, heating with wood, I would most likely go mad.
 
W-L, it's really good to hear from you, thanks for the update. I'm really glad to read that you're getting things put well back together after last summer's devastation. Keep in touch. Rick
 
Good to see you on the rebound there. I was thinking about surviving winters out there on the Canadian plains recently when I visited Medicine Hat, AB. They don't even have trees.

I guess that's why the settlers died- they froze. :)
 
Sounds similar to my family’s summer, fall and now winter. My parents own a cabin on the Cedar River and we also saw record flooding. In 1993 the Cedar reached a level of 19.2 feet and we managed to stay dry but just barely. Well 2008 turned out a little different the river reached a level of 31.2 feet and we got wet, real wet and muddy too. Pretty much the only thing we were able to save was the shell of the cabin some of the windows and the old Jotul #8. Wolves-Lower I feel your pain when I read that you just got your power back we also struggled with no power and no water, makes clean up kinda hard. Thank goodness last winter my Dad and I bought 2 3500 watt generators real life savers. Our cabin is situated in approximately 500 acres of river bottom timber to say its in the boonies isn’t much of a stretch. Once the main clean up was done and the cabin was weather tight the focus turned to the Jotul #8 as we didn’t know when we would be able to replace the furnace, the checkbook can only handle so much. (no federal bailout for us) We dismantled the #8 wire brushed everything inspected the chimney and gave her a new coat of stove black and fired her up boy what a good feeling after such a long summer. We have a Warm Morning wood stove that is out in the shed and it needed a little more work, all new chimney a sand job and new stove black. We used the heck out of both stoves this last weekend and they did a good job keeping our deer hunting party warm. Ahhh maybe life can finally get back to normal.
Click to expand...

Trouba,
The Good ole Cedar River. Thats the Sulky B**ch that got me and many others. I am located in Cedar Falls and we smashed the record by 5.5 ft or something like that.
Your story is very familiar. It sounds like you got the place up and running.
The Electric power was the struggle indeed. When they cut power, water was not to be had for clean up.
Things could have been much worse. Cedar Rapids downstream got hammered.
The good news is the work ethic of the Mid-West really showed. Everybody I know got right to work, helping each other and giving aid that was sorely needed.
If you are ever in CF feel free to look me up for some fishing or beer at the lake.
 
Since many of you have mentioned how the pioneers might have done it, you might get a detailed perspective of just how it was for the Norwegian and Swedish settlers on the plains in the MN, SD and ND area by reading Giants In The Earth by O. E. Rolvag. I read this book well over 40 years ago and still shake my head in amazement that ANYONE survived the winters. It is "reality" in its purest form. Many did not survive.
 
Wolves-Lower

Our cabin is south of Cedar Rapids just down river from the historic Sutliff bridge or whats left of it. The high water here was some 10 to 12 feet over the record. Kinda hard to tell since the gauge in CR was washed away but I just measuring on our buildings,,, well its still hard to believe. Weird thing is we still consider ourselves lucky we lost a lot but other people lost even more and don't have the finances and or skill to do the repairs themselves. Heck my checkbook is still smoldering and my Dads erupted in flames a long time ago.

As far as our forefathers I think middle age was considered 25ish must have been an awful hard life. I don't think there was much free time you were either growing food working on your shelter or gathering firewood for what was sure to be a long cold dark winter.

P.S. Thanks for the invite. I also agree Iowa's strong values and work ethic really stood out this summer. No looting here funny how that never makes the news.
 
Congrats and excellent post. Nothing like being self sufficient (if you need to be!!!)

this picture shows how close I am to the Mississippi river:
P10100581Small.jpg


So, while the flood doesn't ever get high enough to effect my home on this bluff, I have plenty of local people who are still out of their houses.
 
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