They’re the cutest!!

They’re the cutest!!

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Sourdough Sunday: Making Do

Can a wood stove classify as a sourdough? If so, this old boy is high on the list. Someone’s handiwork, made of plate steel, it sported a 2″ boiler valve on the backside which we’ve determined was for air intake and long ago plugged off with ash build up. This old stove has kept Dad & his cabin warm for more than 30 years. (The floor was unpainted under the metal disks the legs sat on. I know he painted the floor right before I visited in ’92.)

This stove was repurposed from another location and at the time was a big improvement from what Dad had, which, for a while, was a homemade 55 gal barrel stove . In the true sourdough spirit, you use what you have until you can upgrade. Often those improvements were found, made, repurposed or gifted to you. You just weren’t in the position to go buy a brand new replacement nor able to haul it out easily. And all too often sourdoughs used some awful sketchy wood stove setups!

Besides having a small fire box and just not burning through the night, the old thing was so leaky we always seemed to smoke ourselves right out. Every time you opened the front door of the cabin a big puff of smoke would come out from the middle seam of the stove doors. Even with new gaskets it would still belch out smoke.

The old grumpy honeybee.

It does have the benefit of a cooktop and plenty of space for the water pots. And it’s hell bent for stout. It will have a new purpose to be sure.

Empty stove corner.

We wrestled the heavy old thing out to make room for our new-to-us Earth Stove. I scored this one off Facebook marketplace from a nice fella named Dave. I’ll admit, being able to drive right out with it in the back of our truck made replacing this stove possible. I can’t image trying to pack it in any other way.

Smaller footprint, larger firebox!

There’s just enough room for the two water pots on top of this stove. Or one water pot and the coffee pot. Priorities.

Come spring we’ll pull this stove outside, remove the rust and re-black it. It will look like new! Maybe we’ll paint the floor too.?.?

The old stove will make our new shop nice and warm next winter. That is, if we get it built this summer. 😉 A place where we don’t have to worry about things like smoke leaking out and such. The old boy will go on to warm us for a long while.