Chris Sturgeon

Welcome from the Yukon. It's gonna start warming up soon. I promise!

I honestly love the taste of natto. I lived in Yokohama for a while in the late 90's and would go to a breakfast diner near my work site every-morning for a bowl of rice, natto and a green tea.
They served it with a raw egg, hot mustard and salt. I think maybe it reminded me of the salty porridge I grew up with... and about as easy to eat with chopsticks!

Anybody have a source for a natto starter? This is not the sort of food easily sourced in the Yukon.

5 years later; I'm curious how this experiment played out?

The short drop.

Dave, I hear ya. I've never been a shower guy, but I love a long soak in a tub. I've considered buying or making a Japanese style sitting tub (they have a 'car-door' on the side) and use much less water than a European style bath.
For now, I suffer, and take a shower about twice a week, or when I feel dirty... what ever comes first.

Things that help:
heated flooring... living in the Yukon, I have the opposite for 7 months of the year.
natural light... ditto
short luke warm showers... somehow the less temperature swing the better
a bucket in the stall... sometimes I wash only my hair over the bucket, the rest of me stays dry and therefore warm. The bucket is then used to flush the toilet or water house plants.
Cat baths... use a warm cloth to wash areas that need it

failing all that you could build a wood fired rocket hot tub!

Thanks, John. I'll be watching this after Thanksgiving dinner tonight!

We are Walter's humans. He came to us from an abusive household, so he has some quirks. One of them is obesity, so we've been working on slowly reducing his intake. One year later and I swear he's gained weight! He's either a successful squirrel hunter (I have my doubts), or he's got a side hustle with one of the neighbours and their food dish.

For anyone in the North, the Labrador Tea plant is an great wild edible.

From the Food First website:

Labrador tea is aptly named for its edible use and can be made into a tea served hot or iced. It is caffeine free. The flavour is floral. See brewing instructions in the recipe below.
Fresh leaves can be chewed on while hiking
Fresh leaves can be used as a seasoning for meats or fish.
Use leaves fresh or dried or freeze them for year-round use.

Dillon,  you are surely right. I'll pop the unit out when the stove is cool to have a look. Interesting to hear about your folk's older unit, I hope I can get mine to last that long!

Graham. I visited Wellington last winter. Lovely city! I especially enjoyed Garage Project and Tua Brewing. One thing Wellington doesn't have is -45c winters. I'm not sure if NZ has the same stringent air quality laws that Canada has, but I wouldn't be surprised, I was impressed with your country's efforts to contain invasive species (all those damn possums!). Thank you for your input.

This is the second week of snow here on the marge of Lake Laberge and it seems to be sticking. Time to start heating the house.

My house came equipped with a Blaze King brand wood stove, the type with a catalytic grid for re-burning any useful wood gasses in the exhaust stream. See image below.

This cat would be about 8 years old now, and I know their effectiveness diminishes over time, but this year I've noted a distinct drop in efficiency from the stove.

I suspect that house-sitters we had last year burned a fair amount of scrap treated lumber though the stove.
Does anybody know if that would cause bad hoodoo in the cat?