My lot is 22 Acres, roughly 600 feet wide by 2500 feet, iirc, I must have over Mile and just my little bit of land a lot of loops.. as they had to clear cut it after the tornado went through. And if you've ever seen a logging Trail they all tend to loop back to the next one. I think a trail along the property line would be a good way keep an eye on trees and be used for nature walks in the summer
I found these comments on a mountain bike forum: One mile of trail per 25-30+ acres can result in a trail system that provides the experience of being away from it all and you won't see other trail users over on another part of the trail system. So if you have rolling and wooded land, your 20 miles is very feasible and 30 may be feasible [on 800 acres]. One mile per 10 acres is dense enough to where you'll see another trail user here and there on other parts of the trail network, but it can be done in a way that still provides a feeling you're going somewhere as opposed to winding back and forth on yourself. ... Do you want to feel like you're going somewhere and not see one segment of trail with another rider ever? I think this is what a lot of public land mangers with good size chunks of land to work with shoot for. 1 mile per 25+ acres. Still want to feel like you're going somewhere but don't care about seeing an occasional other trail user through the woods but don't want to see the other actual trail tread segment? IMO, seeing the other trail segment through the woods detracts from the experience and make you feel more like you're on a gerbilwheel. A bit tight on space, but your own private playground, you should be looking here IMO. 1 mile per 10 to 12 acres.
Yeah about what I got out back 12 acres.. Very rolling.. I brush hog the trails with a 6 ft brush hog. Just make sure on your snowmobiling that you put some of the trails as one way so you don't have head-on collisions with people goofing off.. Sleds are about 4 feet wide. Kids like to go a little out of control.
Standard high use trails here are 20 feet wide.. Pull off areas a points of interest are good idea also..
The knobs fit: And the first oven liner box was hammered home: It’s far from perfect or professional but I can honestly say I built them, they fit perfectly and I installed them.
That looks great! I can hardly wait for a meal to get cooked in that beast! Maybe next winter? How about a ceremonial batch of blueberry muffins sometime before spring?
I’m hoping to test it soon, maybe next week, and test the oven temps too. I’m sure we’ll be cooking and baking with it by this summer.
They’ve been cleaning out the underbrush and small trees from the woods surrounding the retreat house:
I got the second box in. I realized I could work them in by hand without hammering them when I slid the second box in. I can only call it miraculous. I built these boxes 500 miles away from this stove, in my mom’s basement back in PA. Musta made some accurate measurements for a change! You couldn’t fit a sheet of paper between the steel boxes and the cast iron openings.
It took me a lot longer than I had hoped but I’m like a little kid today, I’m so excited this project actually came together as I planned and envisioned it. In the past on major projects, it was always a process of going back and repeating steps, because invariably something would have been the wrong measurement or cut wrong. Not so with this project. Everything went so smoothly, according to plan. All the steps just fell into place. I’m getting goosebumps just remembering the whole project over the last 5 months. I can’t wait to build the first fire. Gotta do some simple furnace cement repair later this week, but I have a couple more days work in our offices first.
That is a functional thing of beauty, and congratulations for bringing it back to life! I bet there isn't another one left in the world.
Thanks! They’re rare but there’s still a few around, mostly in New England estates and museums. It’s not easy to find information about using them, let alone restoring them.
FINALLY... Started a fire at 9:30 this morning. It took a full half hour to stop smoking back. It was pretty alarming at first, and these was a lot of condensation coming out various areas, but I realized I didn’t have the two flue dampers wide open. But now the stove (cook) top is over 500• and the oven about 2:50 so far.
I burned a whole Supercedar at the base of the flue before I started the fire to heat up the chimney. I thought that would do it but I still had the dampers partially closed. It’s a tall old manor and this thing hasn’t been burned in decades. I’m sure there a was stubborn plug of cold air in the chimney. It’s is about 28• now but was around 25• when I started, and we’re just now getting some freezing rain.
A good day for a winter party at the retreat house. It’s still torn down to bare studs so we couldn’t hold in what heat that old stove was able to make, but we had fun nonetheless.
