About a month ago, friends at the CSA were off to a mesquite milling festival out of town. They told me I should go because I'd love to meet the folks hosting it. Unfortunately I had other plans, but I perused their website and boy, was I impressed.
David Omick and Pearl Mast show that living well in the desert is very doable. I spent hours reading through their entire website and getting inspired. My sweetie took a look at it and realized he'd seen their home in the book, Little House on a Small Planet.
Of particular interest to me, though, was the oven David designed. He called it a very hot solar oven, which heated up to 600 degrees on sunny summer days and could be used to cook on overcast days. I love my little solar oven but it does not get up to temperatures hot enough to cook on cloudy days.
I e-mailed and asked if he had design plans for it so I could set my sweetie onto the task of building me one. He replied that he would add detail to his website that should enable anyone handy enough to attempt to build one to put it together. That information is now present. I'm hoping I can get my sweetie working on this in 2008. I don't want to distract him now because he's working on building me a nice long bike for my Xtracycle attachment!
In the meantime, I hope some of you handy folks might try your hand at building this and report back on your success. Here's to cooking with El Sol!
Photo from Living Outside the Box.
4 comments:
I'll have to check this out. I have a small solar oven I made from cardboard boxes and it will cook a few things but it really doesn't get very hot. I'd like a better one but don't want to spend the money to buy one.
This is a complex project....just to warn you. There are easier designs out there that get to the standard 250-350 degree range. One key, I think, is moving up from cardboard to a heavier duty material such as wood.
This looks like fun! Thanks for the links...I have always wanted a cob oven like the one at Path to Freedom. Someday...someday soon.
Oh yeah, the Path to Freedom site sets me to big-time dreaming. Like you say, someday...
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