coal garden

[Cornbelt]

Anybody have a coal garden? Gives you something to watch grow in the winter.

[blind ear]

Anybody have a coal garden? Gives you something to watch grow in the winter.

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Coal or cold? Never heard of one. More explination please. ear

[Casull]

Yep, kind of curious about that one myself.

[Ranger J]

Way back when I was a kid my mother would take a couple of lumps of coal (try to find that today) put them in a dish and soak them in a solution of bluing and something else??.  Then she would splatter food coloring on it and in a few days delicate colored crystals kind of like coral  would start to grow.  Is this what you are talking about?  Just found this recipe on line but can't guarantee it is the same one.


COAL GARDEN   

Read more about it at www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,189,157189-248202,00.html
Content Copyright © 2011 Cooks.com - All rights reserved.

6 tbsp. bluing
6 tbsp. salt
6 tbsp. water
1 tbsp. ammonia

Stir bluing, salt and water and let stand 1 hour. Add ammonia. Pour over coal. Add 1 tablespoon water twice per week. Add food coloring after it starts to grow. When through with coal garden, wrap and throw away. Do not flush down the toilet or pour it down a drain, it will keep on growing.

RJ

[Drilling Man]

  I can get all the "lumps" of coal i want here.  It's @195.00 a ton at the farm elevator here...

  DM

[BUGEYE]

We heated with coal when I was a kid.  down at the bottom of the pile there would be small pieces like gravel and we fed those to the hogs.  they loved them.

[kodiak1]

drillingman

$195.00 a ton holy cow that is expensive!!
I burn coal in the winter up here and 26.5 ton cost me $56.60 a ton delivered from the mine, and it was oiled for dust control.
The mine is about 80 miles away.

Ken.

[Ranger J]

I may have to get in touch with some of you for presents to family members, say around Christmas time.

RJ

[Drilling Man]

drillingman

$195.00 a ton holy cow that is expensive!!
I burn coal in the winter up here and 26.5 ton cost me $56.60 a ton delivered from the mine, and it was oiled for dust control.
The mine is about 80 miles away.

Ken.

  It's good quality coal, but it IS expensive too.  I can get what ever size i want, big chunks down to small pieces...

  DM

[steg]

I still run a parlor stove, and in the back part of the house I have a woodburner, for when the temps drop below 20 degrees, actually that's a coal stove too, but it's designed to burn Stove coal, It's roughly the size of a softball and no one sells that size anymore, you have to pick your own, Yep I still do but not so much anymore, just too darn old. The price of coal around here is $175.00 a ton delivered. and as for christmas presents, I'd be more than happy to send some, get the orders in in the summer though, no charge just shipping costs. The best thing about burning wood or coal is that if the power goes out, they just keep right on going. One year the power was out for a week, I swear we had every kid in town staying with us, and the parents stopping over for coffee. tea or a good bowl of homeade soup, made right on the stove, I never saw my Wife so happy as when we had all those little ones staying with us. When the power came back on they didn't want to go home, LOL.....steg

[bilmac]

I have a pot belly stove at my house for exactly that reason.

[Cornbelt]

Ranger J, I think that must have been the recipie we used. Didn't remember about the ammonia till I read your post. (Now how could I forget that?)
  Haven't burned coal since it was free. Sure did put out the heat. Sure did stink!

[Ranger J]

Back in the fifties when I was a kid we had a stoker which loaded small size pieces of coal automatically into the furnace.  If you did not keep the stoker full of coal smoke would back up through it and stink up the whole house.  It was my job to keep the stoker full from the coal bin right next to the furnace.  If the stoker ran out of coal I was the one that caught ned.  The problem was that my mother loved to watch the old Dracula movies on TV and the coal bin and furnace were in the far back corner of the basement and there was no light until I could get to the coal bin  and pull a string to turn it on.  I usually procrastinated until night and I was just sure old Dracula was hiding in our dark basement waiting to jump out and get me.  I remember tying two pop cycle sticks together to form a cross just in case he did.   Our next door  neighbor had a pile of stove coal and that was where we got the coal for our coal garden.  It also had neat formations of 'fools gold' in it.  Simple things for simple minds.

RJ

[Cornbelt]

[Cornbelt]

Agree there. Mom taught us how to throw firecrackers down the main grate right over the furnace so we didn't have to use matches; till the Old Man started exhibiting symptoms of shell shock.    Also remember puking in it once... the Old Man had another symptom.
 

[Ranger J]

You must have had a very understanding mother.  Mine would have had my hide on a stretcher if I even thought about doing something like that.  Dad on the other hand might have though it was funny, once.

RJ