Sanctuary Diaries - Challenges in a Foreign Country.

Wet Wood for Firewood

This place was mostly being heated via electric heaters by the previous owner, but even though electricity is quite cheap here, we had early on decided to rely more on woodfire & the small gas heater he left behind. Especially "cheap" being relative to the prices in luxembourg, but since we are already balancing on a fine tightrope with our finances, it is not that cheap for us. Since those heaters consume a lot of electricity, approx 1000-2000kwh, which seems rather wasteful & inefficient to me, not to mention how the whole WEF agenda that is being actualized & power plants being shut down around Europe I am not so certain those prices & the availability of electricity will remain that reliable in the near future.

We eventually found someone selling firewood for a good price, but when we finally received our delivery & attempted to use it, we quickly realized that the wood was probably freshly cut & basically unusable without drying it out first. So we stacked it all up in a dry space in our little wintergarden section of the house where it will be receiving sunlight, hopefully drying out sufficiently before we really need it in the winter.

I was going to purchase some more firewood from a big store, hoping they would offer firewood that at the least was ready to use, but the delivery costs were the same price as the wood itself which was not an option at all, we did not have the money, nor would I pay that much just to have it delivered. As I was browsing the store to check if there were any tools that I might need for renovations, an older german couple we had become acquainted with via the old owner bumped into me, I told them about our firewood issue & they told me that I probably would have a hard time finding properly dried firewood here, even what I would get from the big store probably would be wet. Hearing that I just decided to invest that money into my own chainsaw instead of wasting any money on wood, since our property had quite a few dead & dying trees that needed to be cut anyway. I felt that I might just as well invest the money into something that would make us much more self-reliable instead of having to waste it on buying wood again & again from someone else.

If it was going to be wet anyways no matter where I got it, I might just as well cut our own & create a proper stock of wood this year from all that is available to us. Although I have never operated a chainsaw, I feel quite excited about learning to wield it. The Garden around the house has quite a bit of old dying trees which will provide quite a loot of wood, but on the other side of the street we have an actual wooded area that belongs to us of 1400m2, where we have an abundance of already fallen trees & plenty of trees that can potentially provide us with wood. Although I won't be of course cutting down everything, but will be exploring finding certain species of trees that grow quickly to create a system where if I do cut down any trees, I'll try to grow new ones in their place preferably something that grows relatively fast so that we can perhaps provide for ourselves entirely over the years.

Headlight Parasite

The journey to the big store also was a little adventure, I drove there with the 1987 Renault, due to law here being that the car needs to have lights on until the 31st of April even during daytime, while I was in the store, I had forgotten to turn off the headlights of the car, which by the time I was finished with browsing & making my purchases, the battery of the car was absolutely dead & drained. I sighed deeply when she didn't start, I initially feared it might be the car itself haven given up on me & already my mind was racing since I had basically spent most of our remaining money on tools & the chainsaw, I feared I might now need to have the car towed away, which made my heart drop into my belly, but after I saw the headlights switch was in the on position, hope returned, I knew probably only the battery had drained.

I didn't have charging cables with me, but I decided to just ask around in the parking lot if anyone could help me jump-start the car. Just as I had decided, the family that was parked next to me returned to their car, they were busy eating a kebab they had bought from a little stand outside of the store, although I was hesitant since I felt it kind of rude to interrupt them while they are eating, I nonetheless approached the man & asked him politely if he spoke any english.
He replied he did a little. I explained my situation, he said he was willing to help but he also did not have any cables to jumpstart the engine. I had some money left, so I asked if he wouldn't mind waiting & I could go check in the store if they had any in stock, he told me sure.

So I quickly ran in, luckily there was a small auto-section & I was able to buy what was needed. When I came back out, they were still there just about finishing their meal, I smilingly showed him that I had got the cable but told him I was in no hurry & let them finish their meal, while I began to pop the hood of the car & slowly prepare everything. When he was done, we connected both vehicles & the car started without any issue immediately. I thanked them for their help, upon which they also immediately drove off.

While I had the hood popped upon I had taken the opportunity to check the coolant level, since I hadn't done so ever since we drove off from Luxembourg & I had noticed that there was barely anything left in the coolant tank, the tank was empty basically bubbling the last remains far below the minimum level. I didn't have enough to go buy coolant & also didn't want to shut off the car with a battery that probably needed to charge a little before it would reliably restart again. So I just prayed she would be able to get me back home despite the drive being 40 minutes & it being a really hot day.

I drove without pushing her, praying all along that she would not overheat on me midway. Thank God she didn't. I praised the car for being so loyal as I arrived & as luck would have it, I found a full bottle of engine coolant in the old store room from the previous owner, which I immediately filled her up with.

I had bought a chainsaw, some sanitary silicone, since the shower had none applied to it, which had caused water to begin leaking under one of the shower floor tiles. Also several bits for the drill I had brought with me so that we could do more DIY ourselves in our renovation efforts.

So I leave you with this little adventure update for now, this was last week & since then we have done quite a bit of work, but I'll save that up for another post cause I would like to share some photos of it all with you guys & need to sort those out first.

Written by AEK (@ravenking13)

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