It was a long week at work. VBS went alright, but not as ‘funny’ as last year. Back at the CDC, a few people were gone at work so there was a little extra time covering in the classroom, and there was an evening meeting on Wednesday. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but like an idiot I said I’d talk at next week’s early childhood conference and I was too pooped each night to work on the presentation. I decided this weekend I would just power through and get the thing done. I feel pretty confident about the first 2/5 of it (the session is an hour and fifteen minutes), but the last 3/5ths is kind of iffy. Oh, well. Good stories never come from happy times.
After working on it pretty diligently during the morning hours, I decided to reward myself by making a brick rocket stove. That’s what the scavenged bricks were for, but as it turns out, Beth and Harold are tearing out their back patio to get ready for a new deck, and they had bricks a-plenty!
I really should have knocked the bricks clean and put them on a level surface, but I didn’t have a lot of time and just wanted to see this thing work. I’ll take it down and re-do it some other time. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! That’s so funny what I just said.
The original plan calls for 16 1/2 bricks, but I had plenty so I made a hearth. You can see how I’ve got too many gaps.
Stack, stack, stack until it’s high enough. I used extra bricks.
The principle of this thing is that you just have to use a few sticks to cook a meal since it’s a hot, quick, contained fire. My wood was wet from today’s rain, so I cheated and used a paper towel with oil to keep everything going.
I had some smoke leakage. It was mesmerizing.
It was interesting that once the water would start to simmer I thought it would just keep boiling. I kept forgetting that the fuel source was being used up and I needed to add more.
It satisfied my need for fire, and made a nice cup of tea.
Peggy says
When the zombie apocalypse happens, I’m definately coming to live with you!
Brad says
I just like the name. I think more things should have the word “rocket” in front of them.
Rocket chair
Rocket cat
Rocket pen
Rocket carrot
They all sound cool!