Ice harvest

[Donn Hewes]

Just a quick note. We did harvest a little ice on Sunday. As it was our first attempt we did not set any high goals but rather considered the whole thing an experiment. We used a traditional ice saw, as well as a chain saw with vegatable oil in place of bar oil. Cutting it, and getting it out of the pond and having the horse and mule pulling sled loads was easy. We haven’t yet constructed a ice house but I had planned to use some straw bales in a corner of a shed. At the last minute we decided to put them in the cheese cave (the place we hope to cool with them next summer) and insulate them in place. A little radical for an experiment, but what the heck. Any way we had some friends over, let some beginners try the lines, and had an all around fun day. Click here to see some pictures.

[Rod]

Neat pictures and interesting project. I am fascinated by pond ice storage and when I see how long the folks used to keep ice stored in their ice houses. It’s just not something we think about until we run into it but is a viable sustainable resource. And its also nice to do something useful with it, after slipping around on it all winter.

[Does’ Leap]

Thanks for sharing that, what a great project. I have been thinking about doing that since my last reading of Farmer Boy with the kids! The cheese cellar seems like the perfect place to use the cooling potential, keeps the humidity up and just melts down the floor drains. I’d love to hear how long you have ice down there this summer.

Kristan

[Author]

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