|
At the beginning of year three on the farm, we started this blog to document
our journey into self-sufficient homesteading and voluntary simplicity.
We're glad to have you along for the ride!
Blog Categories:
Recent
Comments
Recipes
Resources
Search
|
|
|
|
Posts tagged energy:
Huckleberry is an indoors-outdoors cat, but
yesterday he decided that he was most decidedly an indoors cat.
When Mark and I came home from a day spent visiting, we were a bit
surprised to find Huckleberry curled up on the futon. Surely I'd
put him out before leaving the house that morning --- but maybe he'd
slipped back past us as we were leaving? He seemed quite content
to be inside away from the cold weather, so I didn't think any more
about it.
Until a few hours later, that is, when I put him out for the night and
snuggled up in bed with a book. Just as my book sucked me in,
little feet came padding down the hallway and Huckleberry announced his
presence with a pleased "Meow!"
What in the world? I
shot out of bed and did a little exploring, quickly discovering the new
"cat door." While we'd been gone all day, Huckleberry had
deviously ripped the air hose to the outdoor wood furnace out of the
wall, creating a massive hole through which he could easily prance into
the house. Thanks a lot, Huckleberry!

This morning, I
discovered that scientists
are right --- cold hands make cold hearts. Between
Huckleberry's cat door letting in frigid air, the golf cart having
frozen into the mud overnight so that we couldn't get the tires to roll
and collect the wood Mark had cut at the other end of the property, and
the chainsaw's gas having somehow frozen solid so that we couldn't cut
any closer wood, I was cold and irritable. Luckily for me, Mark
solved all of our problems, even managing to start a fire out of wet
kindling on a cold day. As the interior temperature tops 60 F, my
heart has begun to thaw. 
This entry is intended for women. Men,
feel free to read along --- I'm not going to be talking about reusable
sanitary pads (not in this entry, at least). I'm only warning you
because it might not be as relevant to you.
Why is this aimed at women? Because I read somewhere that women
tend to have stronger legs while men tend to have stronger arms --- and
this has been very true when comparing me and Mark. I watch us
work and notice that I dig with my feet while he digs with his arms, I
happily trot up hills while he happily lifts heavy weights, and so
forth. This post is also for women because up to 9% of women have
carpal tunnel (like me) while only 2% of men have carpal tunnel.
Both of these sets of statistics are very relevant when it comes to one
of the major chores of winter --- chopping wood! Wood chopping
takes major upper body strength and can also really exacerbate your
carpal tunnel. Luckily, I've found that by chopping smarter, I
can chop quite a bit of wood (though I don't compare to Mark's
levels.) So, how to chop smart? Read more....
A red letter day --- off with
the space heaters and on with the fire! With the temperature
hovering around 40 all day, Mark decided to fire up the wood stove this
afternoon. Now it's warm as toast inside.
This was another one of those gargantuan entries, so instead I've
posted the complete how-to (and
why) on installing an exterior wood furnace over on the resources
page. Check it out --- and stay warm!
This morning, Mark and I followed coal trucks
up the highway to go to court in Wise. We weren't in trouble, but
some friends of ours were --- young people who had chained themselves
to barrels last month to protest the construction of a coal-fired power
plant which is being built about ten miles from our farm, and about two
miles from another coal-fired power plant. (The picture to the
left is the power company's idea of what the plant will look like, with
a little smoke photoshopped in by me to make it more realistic.)
Unfortunately, prevailing public sentiment in our region runs
pro-plant. We passed a massive yard sign a few miles up the road
from the power plant site which proclaimed "Elect McCain-Palin --- they
support coal!" Although our region (in my biased opinion) is one
of the most beautiful spots in the world, Wise County is also the most
economically depressed county in Virginia and its residents are quick
to believe the full page ads Dominion has taken out in the local
newspapers proclaiming the riches which will flow into our region once
their power plant is built.

Those of us who submitted comments to the DEQ, spoke up at public
hearings, begged our elected leaders, and pummeled the local papers
with letters to the editor made no headway in preventing the plant from
receiving its permits (though we did reduce the permitted mercury
emissions from 72 to 4 ppm.) Eventually, hot, young heads cooked
up an act of civil disobedience. And even though I don't really
approve of civil disobedience in non life-or-death situations, I ended
up driving to the courthouse to show my opposition --- again --- for
the power plant.
In the end, the judge agreed to give the young people fines, community
service, and probation instead of the threatened jail time. Most
of them were taking time off college to come to the hearing, and they
had travelled from across the U.S. both to chain themselves to barrels
and, now, to pay for their "crime." The county ended up taking in
over $4,000 in fines and fees --- I always did say that tourism would
be our region's saving grace. 
"I know what I did was illegal, but I do not think it was wrong," said
one of the young women in her prepared statement. Personally, I
know that building a dirty power plant in a region with the highest
asthma rates in the state and some of the lowest levels of healthcare
infrastructure is wrong --- I just wish it was illegal.
If you want to read more, or help out, check out some of the major
players in the battle:
This week's question comes from Laura in Cincinnati Ohio.
I wanted to ask you if you have a
generator for your deep freeze? I got to thinking about this
after the storm a few weeks ago. A lot of people in the tri-state
area here would have lost their harvest without one.
I have had the same concern since I started seriously freezing food
last year. A couple of months ago I started doing some research on how
much a generator would cost us and what type we should get. 
We settled on a Champion 3000 watt generator from Home
Depot.com. It sells for 349 dollars plus 40 bucks for shipping. I
tried calling the local Home Depot store to see if I could order it and
pick it up there. The woman informed me that they only carry Coleman
generators in the store and online items had to be shipped to your
house. We placed the order 10 days ago and if everything goes as
scheduled it should show up sometime next week. Once it's here we will
fully test it and post a review to let everyone know how it performed.
It is possible to make your own generator from an old lawn mower engine
and a car or truck alternator. I found this site that provides
some advanced tips on such a project. I considered giving it a try a
few years back and decided it would cost just a bit more money to buy a
new one.
The last few weeks have had everybody
wondering about the future of our
economy. Common sense says that hard times will require a good deal of
sacrifice. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to predict that one of the
first areas most folks will feel the squeeze is in higher fuel costs.
This post will be an attempt to share with you what I've learned about
building your own electric powered vehicle.
I'm sure everybody has seen those futuristic looking hybrid cars on the
road, and I'm also sure that only a small percentage of you have the
extra cash to spend 40 thousand dollars in an effort to save a few
dollars at the pump. There is a lot of information on the internet
these day about home made electric transports, and a good place to
begin is EV Album.com. Here you can
find an easy to navigate collection
of projects including electric powered bikes, motorcycles, cars, and
trucks. There's even a guy who managed to get a small tractor working
with a golf cart motor.
The cheapest way to get moving with electric power is to convert one of
your pedal powered bikes. There are some nifty kits available that use
a small motor that attaches directly to the hub of your bike wheel.
These packages start at around 300 dollars and can go up to a thousand
and more depending on battery size and motor power. I've heard of
several people adapting starter motors to power a bike chain, and if
you're lucky you might be able to get a bike motorized for less than 50
bucks this way, but be prepared to walk home a few times before you get
it perfected.
The next step up in electric mobility would be converting
a motorcycle.
The average low end cost seems to be about 1500 dollars with some
people managing a bit under that and most going several thousand over.
You can expect to get somewhere between a 10 and 50 mile range on each
charge depending on road conditions and how good your batteries are.
The holy grail of electric locomotion would be the elecrtic car/truck.
Once you find the right car to convert and take out its gas powered
engine you should be prepared to spend at least 10 thousand dollars and
100 or more man hours to get something reliable. The maximum range
people seem to be reporting is around 50 miles, which will most likely
improve as battery technology gets better. At the time of this writting
the most popular vehicle for this type of conversion is the Chevy S-10
truck.
I considered what it would take to replace our old Isuzu farm truck's
engine with an electric motor. Once I priced the motor, batteries,
motor controller, battery charger, and other various items I concluded
that it would be easier and cheaper to just buy a used golf cart. We
found one on Craigs list a few months ago and have been pleasantly
surprised at its performance crossing our creek and dealing with the
muddy conditions here. Of course it doesn't have the same power as the
four wheel drive truck, but it's a breeze to get unstuck if you have
someone pushing from behind, and sometimes it just feels better to get
by with less.
|
|