First Time Fishing in 2014

Fishing season on the River Dodder began the day after St. Patrick's Day. Fortunately for the fish in the river, we were so busy traveling and sightseeing in March that I just couldn't find a free moment on a day with good fishing weather.

Finally, I was able to squeeze in a few morning hours in April. I cycled over to the newly-cleaned Dodder and found my favorite pool. It might not be the very best fishing on the river, but it is conveniently located for me and one of the most beautiful views in all of Dublin.

It is locally known as The Waterfall in Donnybrook. The river cascades down a short stone weir that looks natural, but is actually a carved weir, or dam. Opposite the river is Beaver Row, an interestingly-named Donnybrook street. The street is so named for a beaver pelt hat factory that stood on the river in the nineteenth century. Maybe more on that story in another post.

Below the Donnybrook Waterfall

I was trying some new bait for trout on my first trip out. I have documented before that live bait is expensive and perishable here in Dublin. Maggots are the most popular live trout bait, and are very effective. Unfortunately, the cost and storage problems of live maggots (Honey, what is that bag of squirming larvae doing on the refrigerator?) keep me away from the tackle shop.

As an alternative to expensive maggots, I decided to try a new bait that I can collect for free. Mussels and cockles (of should I phrase it Cockles and Mussels?) are easily collected on nearby Sandymount Strand but are a bit too gritty and sandy for my human taste. If I could collect some shellfish and cook them to firm up the meat, would they be effective as a freshwater trout bait? I did just that earlier in the Spring on the strand. I picked a handful of mussels from the old Victorian Baths foundation and dug a few live cockles (small clams) from the sand at low tide. I steamed them just enough to open the shells and firm the meat, and froze them in hook-sized pieces. I took them fishing on the Dodder to find out if they would be tempting to the trout.

Fishing on the Dodder

 Well, the answer is inconclusive. Just because I spent a whole morning fishing with a bait with no bites doesn't mean the bait doesn't work, right? Most anglers I know would agree. Lots of other factors can result in a skunk day. Water levels, weather conditions, time of day, and the always-easy-to-blame blind luck of fishing can all be the difference between bent rods and broken dreams.

...And other anglers will also agree with the old American fishing motto:

A bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work.

Too true.

Dodder Pool

Donnybrook Waterfall

Sunny Waterfall

My First Published Article!

Recently, I have been wondering if I can do some writing for more than just the blog forum. Dublin has several free community newspapers, and I offered to do some voluntary writing for them. On Monday this week, Southside People ran an article I wrote about the second annual Dodder Day, organized by Dodder Action Dublin. 

The cleanup day was a resounding success, with mounds of trash and garbage of all kinds pulled out of the river and banks by over 250 volunteers, including Yours Truly. I teamed up with two other gents in Milltown to pull out a huge pile of scrap metal from a steep bank. The photo I took of my Milltown teammates was run in page 6 of the print edition of the paper.

I worked with and met some great people at the Donnybrook and Milltown cleanup locations. The hard work of all the volunteers made a big difference, and hopefully inspires the community to care for the priceless natural resources we have.

Here's the online edition.

...And the print edition. 

Following are some photos taken that day that didn't make the paper.

Dodder Action Dublin Set Out a Great Volunteer Spread

Cory With some Trash

Our Three-Man Milltown Trash Heap

Final Milltown Take

Shopping with a Suitcase

As already stated elsewhere in this blog, one of the biggest lifestyle adjustments we had to make was abandoning car ownership.  In suburban Iowa, owning a car was just a rule of life.  Most families owned multiple cars- because Iowa (and much of America) has so much darn... space!  The sprawling nature of many towns AND the long distances between towns and cities makes car ownership necessary in all but the biggest cities.  The increased space also means we have room to hold all of these cars in attached (or detached) garages, wide driveways, and curious covered carports.

Here, nuh-uh.  No Irish driver's licence, no money for a car payment, and no interest in ever operating a vehicle on the streets of Dublin are just the first few on the long list of reasons we don't (or can't) own, keep, and use a car here.  This means, of course, that all of our errands must be done without the aid of personal four-wheeled transport.

The Options

Well, when we need groceries, our nearest supermarket is about a mile from our apartment.  There is a bus that could take us from our corner down the street to the supermarket- perfectly acceptable.  The trip would be short and comfortable.  What's wrong with that?  Well, a lot.  First, much of our shopping time would be spent waiting for a bus, especially if we went during off hours.  No criticism of the bus system, they have budgets to keep, of course.  Speaking of budgets, buses here are expensive (for us...) and taking two people on a round trip would add up to about 10% of our weekly grocery budget.  Really not worth the cost.  See also: taxis.  That might be 20% of our weekly budget.

We do have bicycles, and they are a great way to get around mostly flat Dublin.  We use them for shopping when we need to make quick trips for a few items.  Anything more than a few pounds (on each bike) makes the return trip rather dangerous, with sagging, overloaded backpacks catching the wind and blowing us into lanes of traffic...  Not to be used for the main weekly trip with the sacks of flour, jugs of milk, and bags of potatoes.

In many American cities (a bit sadly, really...) the mere thought of walking a full mile each way to the supermarket would bring cries of terror and much gnashing of teeth.  "Good Lord, Helen!  And to think, on the mile walk home from the store they are carrying their groceries!"  We are by now fully acclimated to walking most places, budgeting extra time and wearing comfortable shoes when we need to.  The mile to the market only takes 15 or 20 minutes, and takes us through quiet, green, and pleasant neighborhoods.  The character whining to Helen earlier does have a right point about the weight, though...  Walking that mile with sagging shopping bags can really lead to sore shoulders and stiff backs.

The Solution?

We had seen in the market shoppers with specially designed wheeled trolleys just for grocery shopping.  They are built on a sturdy lightweight plastic frame with several sizes of soft, zippered compartments.  The wheels are large diameter fixed casters for easy rolling over cracked sidewalks and curbs.  Many shoppers bring these to the market, put it in their cart (called a trolley here) while shopping, and fill it up for the trip home.  For a few weeks, we marveled at them, thinking, "Wow, what if..."

Then it happened, one day we saw a young couple with a baby at the market with a large wheeled suitcase in front of us in the checkout line.  We were just dreading our walk home that day, loaded with lots of heavy goods as we were, and seeing this other couple with another solution gave us a start.  "We have those!  We have five of them from our checked-luggage-move!  We don't have to buy one of the special shopping trolleys!"

Wow, what a difference.  Heavy goods are no longer a problem.  We can load up the suitcase with just about anything we could possibly need on a grocery trip.  Sometimes we carry fragile goods like eggs and  bulky-but-lightweight items like toilet paper- but all the cans, liquids, potatoes- in the suitcase.

A Perfect Solution?

In short, no.  It isn't perfect.  Our one particular gripe is the size of the wheels and their tricky nature over rough ground.  Travel suitcases weren't designed to be pulled over bumpy, cracked sidewalks- through piles of rotting autumn leaves blown into a corner by a wind eddy- over corners without ramps down to the street and back up to the sidewalk level on the other side.  They were designed to be packed gently and carefully with soft, light items like clothing and pulled over smooth, freshly buffed and polished airport floors.  Sometimes it's a bit of a struggle to get the overloaded suitcase over the bigger bumps without shifting the contents too much.  It takes some careful packing and some artful tiptoeing on the way home to make it- but as they say, "If it isn't hard, everyone could do it!"

... Or something like that.

How Much?

How much can we fit in the suitcase?  On a recent trip to the market- the first one of the month when we had the budget flexibility to get all the things we had used up in the last lean week of the prior month- we got a pretty good pack in our trusty shopping helper.  Observe in the (poorly lit) photos below-

A Full Load

We packed in flour, sugar, and other baking goods.  We packed in rice, pasta, and beans.  We packed in milk and butter.  We packed in some meat (kept separate from the other food in a re-used SPAR bag.)  We packed in fresh produce.  We packed in everything.

Extreme Grocery Close-up!

Just another work-around we use to keep ourselves healthy and sane.  I hope that walking to the market for all of our goods will become a habit that stays with us wherever we live.

Don't Try This at Home... Hops Muffins?

So...

I like to experiment.  Tinker.  Poke and prod at the little things in life.  Sometimes I do some research before I tinker.  Sometimes I at least take time to ponder what might happen before I dive in to a new project.  Sometimes I do neither of those.  With mixed but always interesting results.

I enjoy brewing, and I enjoy cooking.  One day, I happened to be doing both activities on the same day.  I was bottling my first big batch of Irish Stout, and I had some nice soup-and-bread dinner plans for later.  After bottling the beer, I was left with a good, solid base of yeast trub at the bottom of my fermenter.  The trub is a pale brown creamy substance made of the solids that fall out of suspension in a fermenting batch of beer (or wine, or cider.)  Most of this is yeast cells, living and dead.  Trub (if proper sanitary measures are taken) can be added to a fresh batch of beer to get fermentation started quickly, and without having to buy another pack of yeast!  I wasn't going to be brewing any more beer that day, but I was going to be making some bread.

Hmmm... Stout bread!  What could go wrong!?  Turns out I forgot about something else that hangs out in the yeasty trub.  More on that later.  First, the method!

Scoop that Trub!

I had to get the trub out of the fermenter and into my dough.  I cleaned and sanitized my soup ladle and scooped out  some of that rich yeastiness.  I also got some of the stout which I had intentionally left in the fermenter because of excessive trub-iness.  I thought it would be great!

I added some warm water to my flour, yeast, salt, oil, and trub mix to make a thick dough.  I kneaded the dough just like I would any other bread.

Kneading

Finished Kneading

I kneaded the bread to a smooth elastic ball and set it to rise.  Rise it did!  Just like using the pack of bread yeast.  "AHA!  It rose!  So much for buying bread yeast!"  I thought, triumphantly.  

Punching Down the Dough

It rose and I punched it down to shape for baking, just as I always do.  When I need bread fast, I will make rolls or "bread muffins" as we call them because I cheat with muffin cups to shape the rolls.  I shaped this malty-smelling dough into nice rolls and set it to bake.  They came out of the oven dark brown and beautiful.

Stout Rolls!

All that was left was to butter one up and try it!  I couldn't wait.  They cooled, while I got my butter and knife ready.  I pulled one apart to study the nice dark crumb and roasted malt smell of the bread.  hmmmmm....  I buttered one up and tasted...

"WHOA HOLY BITTER!!  Yikes!  What is that!?"  I could taste the nice stouty malty taste, and the general deliciousness of fresh-baked bread in any form- but there was a gnarly bitter aftertaste just behind it.  "The hops!  Oh no!"

Indeed, I had forgotten what else lurks in trub- hops.  This batch included some dry leaf hops to boil for beer bitterness.  After boiling fresh hops, I strained the liquid into the fermenter, but a good bit of tiny hop particles traveled with it into the fermenter.  Usually no problem in the beer, because those solids fall out of suspension into... the trub.  I had a nice clear stout on top of a bitter hop bomb.  The rolls were close to unpalatable.

We tried some with our soup, but even the pleasant (whew!) soup could not dull the bitter hoppy kick of those rolls.  I didn't mind wasting the materials, it was really just a cup of flour, but it was a cryin' shame not to have homemade bread to go with soup that night.

If (and that's a big if!) I try this again, I'll do some research about measuring trub.  I did put in a good bit to this dough, thinking it harmless.  It probably would have risen with much less.  At the end of the day, I can always say about these experiments-

"As long as no one got hurt, it was worth a shot."

But don't try this one at home, kiddies.

How Much Vodka?

It's amazing the things one can find out on the streets.  We all know that I have been amassing a huge collection of beer glasses here in Dublin stolen from pubs and abandoned by revelers, but what other useful treasures can we find?

On the same day we had picked up two more glasses, we were walking home past one of our favorite neighborhood pubs, Kiely's of Donnybrook.  Outside the back patio area, we saw the large glass bottle with an attached note.  The bottle was empty (of course) but I thought a 3 liter glass bottle with such a cute note [Please take me! =) ] could not be ignored.  I decided to use is as my own personal 3L fermenter for batches of cider.

How much vodka?

I had already been using the 5L plastic bottle for fermenting, but I could now make some small specialty batches in this bottle, maybe some long-fermenting applejack recipes?  The glass is much easier to clean and sanitize than the plastic, as it can stand up to the heat of boiling water while plastic shrivels and shrinks under intense heat.

First (but not last) batch in the Huzzar vodka bottle

Within days, I had a small batch of an experimental recipe in the bottle.  It fermented out nicely, and I was able to use my larger bottle to ferment a bigger, more well-known recipe.  With an almost-tightened lid, I can create a modestly sanitary environment for fermenting.  The next step will be getting a rubber stopper with airlock to create a proper seal on this bottle.  Who needs a glass carboy when you have Huzzar vodka!?

Bike Fenders

It rains in Dublin.  No surprises there.  Ireland, of course, is internationally known for its mild temperatures and its number of rainy days per year.  This Summer and Fall here have been the driest in years, we're told, but the driest Fall in years is still pretty wet for us.

When bicycles are the primary form of transportation in a wet climate, fenders to protect from backsplash are essential.  I learned this the very hard way one fine afternoon just after a rain.  The sun was out and the rain was gone, but the puddles all remained.  I felt a constant stream of cold, dirty, street water splashing up on my back through the ride.  Yuck.  What was one to do?

We all know the personal motto of Ron Swanson and myself- Buying things is for suckers.  Why buy a worthless piece of plastic when there are hundreds of worthless pieces of plastic in every garbage dumpster to be collected for free?  I decided to see what I could find in the bins of our apartment complex.

Ready for the operation

I found two perfect candidates within easy reach of the top of the dumpster- luckily it was almost collection day so the dumpsters were full enough to easily reach the top few layers.  We had a 1L milk jug for a small front fender and a 1L laundry soap jug to be stretched out into a nice long rear fender.

Milk Jug

The milk jug was the easiest piece to cut.  The plastic was thin and shaped perfectly for these small segments.  As a bonus, the inside of the jug wasn't too moldy or curdled, so a quick rinse with laundry soap (from the other container!) was all it needed to be bike fresh and road ready.

Laundry Soap Jug

The laundry soap jug turned out to be a bit trickier.  The plastic was much more durable and difficult to cut with our cheap-as-free-scissors.  The soap inside was also much thicker, so rinsing was more of a chore.  I had to be careful not to let the blunt scissors slip on the soap-suds-water mix inside the jug while cutting.  After zero injuries to myself, the jug was cut to the shape above.

Rear Fender Attached

After shaping, the next step was to get these things attached to the frame of the bike in the correct places.  The attachment also had to be durable and stay in place during the turns and bumps of cycling in the big city.

I poked a series of holes in the fender, and was able to run several layers of cordage to fasten it to the rear rack.  I used bread bag twist-ties, plastic zip ties, and my favorite- maroon wire from a set of smashed earphones I found on the street.

Front Fender

The front fender ended up being much easier to attach- despite the problem of steering.  I was able to attach the fender to the handlebars just above the "shocks."  I used a plastic-coated wire saved from some packaging to hold it tightly in place over the tire.

Since I have attached these, they have saved my back from dirty street water countless times.  They have held up for a couple of months already, with no signs of slowing down.  I sometimes make minor adjustments to keep everything lined up correctly, but I would expect to do this with any store-bought fender.  Some of these adjustments can be made without even stopping.

I don't know how much money I have actually saved with this, but once I get an idea to do something like this in my head, I just have to follow through.  These projects usually work out well, and the ones that don't always make a good story.

The World's Cheapest Suit

When I was offered my new job, one of the requirements was the purchase of an all-black suit.  Until now, my definition of a "suit" has been a black sport coat I purchased in 2002 for $1.50 at a thrift store with black slacks.  Finally, I needed to actually get something with matching pieces.

We don't need to go into my feelings on spending money in this post, but suffice it to say that I had certain financial hopes and expectations about my new suit before our purchase, and I was worried.  A department store in Dublin called Penney's (not J.C. Penney, despite the spelling...) offers department store fare with Wal-Mart-like quality and prices.  We could only hope that Penney's offered men's suits.  If they didn't, we would be stuck getting something nice.  We also hoped for a suit that would be machine washable.  I didn't want to be spending significant money maintaining a suit that I had just spend significant money obtaining, see?  

Our hopes were realized when we found the far back corner of Penney's, a small rack of polyester two-piece suits on offer for low-double-digit prices.  The polyester is shiny, but it fits reasonably well and is comfortable enough.  Where the suit does show its quality is in durability and care.

After the first few wearings, it was time to wash the suit.  I was certainly glad I could use the machine instead of the cleaners down the street, but I was nervous about what the machine would do to my new threads.  I had to go for it, so in it went.  

When the suit came out of the washer, it was clean BUT was thoroughly wrinkled AND the creases in the pants were gone, just gone.  "Now I have to figure out how to iron this thing?"  Turns out, it can be ironed, but very carefully.

Ironing Polyester?

Using the internet, I saw some tips about ironing polyester.  A wet piece of cloth (a clean T-shirt did for me) laid over the garment protects it from the direct heat of the iron.  Using the wet cloth, I found out, requires much higher heat on the iron, but it achieves a nice, smooth result.  I was even able to get the firm creases back on my pants.  I daresay it looked better than when I bought it!

Well, now we are clean and pressed, but our suit time isn't over.  On the second wearing of the suit, both the front button and the back pocket button had popped off.  I couldn't hardly go to work with no buttons, but I wanted to make sure this wouldn't become a weekly activity.  I wanted to do it right.  Thanks again to the internet and its magical ability to teach someone anything without a teacher, I was able to get it done.

Getting materials ready

I went to the sewing kit for my materials.  We had everything we needed right at hand.  I learned quickly that the large curtain needles were not the correct tools for the job.  Luckily, I did find a smaller, sharper needle to penetrate the hard plastic fibers of these pants.

Needlenose sewing pliers?

Penetrating the plastic fibers proved to be more difficult than I had thought, especially in the dense fabric of the waist.  I had to go to my fishing kit to collect my needlenose pliers to pull the needle through the fabric.

I was able to find a use for those chunky curtain needles in the form of a handy spacer.  The website I found recommended that I use a spacer to give my button a bit of wiggle room so as not to be too tight when buttoning fabric.  These large, blunt needles were perfect for this purpose.

Needle as a spacer

After a good number of stitches using doubled-up thread, I had a satisfying and durable button to securely hold up my pants.

Finished front button

Now for the back button.  This one proved to be a bit more challenging because the button sits inside of the back pocket.  The fabric was easier to penetrate with the needle, but I had to be careful with my positioning.

Working on the pocket button

It was tricky, but I managed it- a firm and pleasing repair.

There! All finished!

Experienced sewers reading this will probably laugh at my improvised methods and my excitement and pride at completing such a minor sewing task.  I am still glad that I was able to make this repair myself.  It even feels a bit "manly" and empowering to be able to properly maintain my clothing, where so many men before me passed this job on to their wives and daughters.  Men of the world!  Learn to sew!  It feels great!  And learn how to tie your own necktie while you are at it.  Don't know how?  Hit the internet, brothers!

Bicycle Basket

While out doing some glass collecting one day, I thought I would try my luck in Temple Bar in Dublin City Centre.  The Temple Bar district is like the New Orleans French Quarter, Dublin style: a neighborhood with an interesting and diverse history taken over by touristy kitsch and wild party bars.  Temple Bar is the place for the Stag and Hen Dos (a do is what the English [UKish?  Great British?  I don't know what to call these people!] call a party... don't ask me why) and a place of pilgrimage for most visitors.  I thought it might be a great place to pick up some glasses left over from the wild parties (dos!?) of the young twentysomethings trolling the alleys every night.

Turns out the pubs in Temple Bar are smart enough not to give drunk partiers (doers!?) real glasses.  I found a boatload of plastic cups with Guinness, Heineken, and Carlsberg logos all over the street, but no glasses.  The day turned out not to be a total loss when I saw this guy on the sidewalk near a toppled-over trash can.

Twisted Metal Black

This closeup was taken after I had dragged it home and started the repair process, but it might be identified as a bicycle rack!  Right there in the trash!  It was, to be fair, crushed and bent almost beyond repair in the trash pile.  The rack clearly was supposed to be mounted on the front handle bar, but the mounting bracket was missing altogether.  The potential I saw with it was not in the front, but bolted to the rear rack of my own bike.  First, it needed some structural support.

Shoelaces hold it together

After bending the wires of the frame back into a mostly square shape, I reinforced the sides with a shoelace I found while out on another walk on another day.  The lace holds closed the gap left by the broken mounting bracket, as seen in the above photo.  A piece of wire I found on the seashore adds more support to the mounting gap.

Today, many weeks after finding and installing it on my bike with plastic zip ties (not pictured), the rack is still in service and holding weight like a champ.  Now when I go fishing I don't need to bring along our big backpack, and when I ride my bike to work, I can put my suit in a plastic bag and throw it in here for the ride.  This lends further credence to the classic Ron Swanson line...

Real-Time Update: Thanks, Lord Stilton!

Some of the readers of this blog may have looked down in the comments section and wondered, "Who is that Lord Stilton who is always correcting Cory's massively inaccurate facts and dropping addition links, hints, and advice?"  Who is he?  The answer, quite simply, is my brewing guardian angel godfather.

Another Godfather

Lord Stilton began offering his advice after I posted the blog post of my first home brew on the forum of The National Homebrew Club, Ireland's home brew community.  Since then, his bits of wisdom have led me to discover new hobbies, learn more about the culture of Ireland, and now, to step up my tiny homebrew operation.

He let me know that he had some homebrew equipment not in use after he had upgraded his setup.  If I could use it, I could have it.  WOW!  I couldn't believe I had received such a generous offer.  He lives outside of Dublin, but offered to bring them to me next time he was in town.  On Monday, we set up a meeting at Kiely's Pub in nearby Donnybrook.  We chatted for a while about our recent trip to Northern Ireland (photos and stories of that to come), the Irish sports of Hurling and Gaelic Football, and further travel plans.

There isn't a way to put this without seeming overly excited, but it was really great to get to meet Lord Stilton face to face and pick up this wonderful gift.

The generous gift

Pictured here on the counter:  A large bucket fermenter with lid, one-piece airlock, a length of siphon tubing, a large piece of muslin material for brew-in-the-bag, a spigot, two heating elements for boiling in the bucket, a beer glass from the All-Ireland Craft Beer Fest, and a bottle of homemade Elderflower Champagne.

With this equipment booster shot, I can go from making cider in 5 Liter jugs to making full batches of tasty beer.  I'll be putting together an order of beer ingredients and getting that ready soon.

Thanks again, Lord Stilton.  Cheers! Prost! 17! Slainte!

Fishing Net

After assembling my fishing kit, I took to the River Dodder to try my luck.  Learning to fish a different kind of river with different species has been tough but enjoyable.  While I don't usually have too much luck on the fishing front along the Dodder, I always have fun.  I also always keep my eye out for any discarded trash worth collecting. 

One morning, a bright blue green streak caught my eye tangled in some thorny branches.  It was a severely damaged, unloved, and abandoned landing net.  The handle had broken off and much of the netting had torn away from the frame.  What was left was a tattered and torn piece hanging loosely on a bent wire frame.  I knew it could be mine and working again with some tender loving care.

Sewing it up

I brought it home and sized up the situation more thoroughly.  I have to pick several dozen burrs from the netting, but the material of the net was strong and held up.  All of the tearing happened at the frame, there were no large holes in the scoop of the net.  I borrowed Sara's sewing kit, cut a long piece of fishing line from my reel, and got to work.

Tying off

I had never sewn anything in any capacity before.  My original plan was to sew up and tie off the individual tears.  I'm sure experienced sewers wish I had taken video of my attempt at this the first time.  I couldn't get correct tension, my thread length was much longer than my arms could pull with each stitch, and I was generally a mess.  Sara did help with some pointers, but I was determined to get this thing myself.

I abandoned the idea of sewing up the holes individually and decided to sew up around the entire frame, putting extra stitches in the damaged areas.  This was the ticket- for me, at least.  In the first photo, observe the fishing line stitches are doubled up and close together on the most damaged parts of the net.  On the rest, I made stitches about 1/2 inch apart, just to keep the line going.

When I had gone around the whole frame, I made my (thankfully only one) tie-off.  In the second photo, the tie-off is seen as the line wrapped tightly over and over around the frame and the standing line.  I finished it with several overhand knots, clipped the tag, and tucked the knot pile into the netting.  Beauty.

Finished net

The handle is still missing, but I can hold on to the little nubbin of wire at the base to reach and lift out fish.  So far, it has stood up to the rigors of use in and out of water.  I am always proud when I can do something like this.  I accomplished so many different small things with just a few minutes of my time.  I removed a piece of litter from the riverbank (probably the most important part of this project), learned the basics of a new skill, and acquired a nice piece of optional fishing equipment- all without spending a cent.

Cardboard Fire Logs

Our home has a wonderful open fireplace.  Just cleaned by the chimneysweep earlier this Spring, it awaits the cold, dark, damp winter.  Just relocated here with less income than the last chapter of my life, I await a way to get cheap (read: free) fuel to feed this fireplace.

My first thought was to prowl the city looking for scrap pieces of wood to use as fuel for our indoor fireplace.  I had made a habit of this back in Iowa for campfire wood fuel.  My main source was the woodshop teacher at my old school who was happy to provide me with clean wood scraps for the campfire.  When I first began to look around for scrap wood, I found it quickly, but began to rethink my choices after some thought.  Years ago, I would have (and did!) happily burned any old wood I could find- fresh, rotten, painted, chemical-treated, anything.  I have since wised up to some of the dangers of burning certain chemicals.  Here, I have seen a great deal of wood in construction dumpsters and broken pallets behind loading docks.  These look identical to anything I would have found back home, and if/when we go camping and need wood for an outdoor campfire, I'll happily come-a-collecting.  I wonder about the safety of burning any construction waste indoors.

That's the key- indoors.  Anything that is in the fuel we burn in our living room is going to end up filling our living space with invisible molecules, permeating the walls -and our lungs- with whatever fun compounds are present.  Fire and chemistry do not lie, nor do they play favorites, so we have to be careful.  I think scrap wood from unknown sources will be out for now.

Never fear!  The internet is here!