Many days, the electricity is too low to heat water. I really like the locally grown coffee. It's fresh, rich, and well roasted. But I need to use the coffee maker, or boil water. The coffee maker will make coffee on low power--an incredibly rich cup that way. But when there is no power at all, which happens a lot, I turn to my other "stove". This is a keyhole campfire, without the main campfire. Under the the 3 main rocks, there is another rock as a platform for the "carbón¨. The carbón is a very fragrant charred, wood, used like charcoal bricketts. It takes a bit more to heat water since it is not compressed. I start this kind of fire with little peices of pitchwood, and sometimes I have a bit of paper to assist it. Often there is not a scrap of spare paper in the house. (This is a hard thing for an artist to bear!) After about a half-hour, I have water hot enough for instant coffee, and about 45 minutes later, hot enough for real coffee.

Living like this is next to constant camping.