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As for small farms in general, you don't have to make a living at it to make it a life. That said, there's room to do both for those sufficiently inclined.
I know that only to well. I tried it in the late 1970s and went broke in 3 years. I only want a place to grow a little food for myself and kick back and do a little fishing. Mostly relaxing. Not burning up too much fuel.
"A scientific survey released Tuesday found 71% of gas pump handles were highly contaminated with germs most associated with a high risk of illness."
Study: Germs on gas pumps, ATMs and more could make you sick (USA Today)
Better buy some Kleenix stock.
I imagine if they conducted a more refined survey, the pump handles in New Jersey and Oregon would likely be the cleanest of the bunch simply because significantly fewer hands have touched them.
Posted this link over in the diesel board - interesting stuff:
How North Dakota Became Saudi Arabia (peakoil.com)
Yeah, North Dakota has more jobs than places for the folks doing the jobs to live. Building like mad trying to keep up. If you want a nice job paying reallly well and live in your car at 40 below you've got a deal!
Meanwhile, I've been scrounging up my gas off coupons. Have to drive to the doc tomorrow a couple of hours away and the van is low on gas. So far, can only get six cents a gallon off the first 8 gallons.
That is a very dangerous form of Staph. A friend's dad was fine and 2 weeks later he was dead at 58. He worked in a public school where they think he picked it up. I guess they did not diagnose properly.
Diesel pump handles all covered with diesel are probably safer.
Getting cold here so I prepped the lawn mower for winter storage over the weekend.
Yep, unplugged the sucker.
Any of those advanced bugs would be the end of me. Once they do the transplant I have to be insanely clean for a year and then get to build up all those immunities like a little kid again. Ugh.
Fezo has a battery model that he says works pretty well.
I wasn't ready to take the plunge this year, so I bought another gas version.
Driving my mom's Fiesta tomorrow. That doesn't use much gas.
I have a small yard; ~6200 sq. ft. but around 4440 sq. ft. to fool with subtracting the house, garage and shed, etc. We're planting a lot of stuff and digging beds so there's even less to mow than a year ago, but I have a lot more obstacles to flip the cord over now, so a battery one would be better in that regard. But I've gotten pretty good with my cord management - haven't even run over the cord yet.
You guys have some strange laws Fezo.
On another note, I'm thinking of removing an old oil tank in my basement. It's got some heating oil in it; no idea how much, maybe 5 or 10 gallons. Has to be at least twenty years old. Does heating oil go bad? Can I offer it to my neighbor without worrying about messing up the orifices in her furnace? The stuff looks like 20 weight motor oil.
Maybe Kernick will see this.
I wouldn't advise it. I've seen home heating oil when it's fresh, and it's supposed to look more or less like pink Diesel fuel. If yours is looking like motor oil, I'd guess by now it has moisture, sediment, and all sorts of other crap in it.
I was ready to ask how your luck with the cord went. Every outdoor item I've used that's electric, lawn edge, circular saw, hedge trimmers, I've cut the cord at least twice. I've gotten really good at soldering and patching the electric cords.
> The stuff looks like 20 weight motor oil.
If I remember right, This Old House or similar program treated an old oil tank in a house as toxic waste when removing the old oil storage tank. It was like the asbestos abatement folks and probably cost like that.
If it were mine, I'd be very quiet about it for that reason. I'd siphon out the oil and put it into an oil recycling location, 5 quarts at a time using old oil containers. Our city has a public location for oil recycling and people leave their containers in trash cans, so I pick up cleaner 5-quart containers for my recycling.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Very good advice. I would not want the Eco police to find out I have an abandoned fuel oil tank in my home. Steve, remember Nunaka valley in Anchorage. Almost every one of those homes were under scrutiny. Before they could be sold the heating oil tank had to be dug up and any residue in the soil had to be remediated. You don't want them condemning your house. Get rid of the old oil as Keith has recommended. Then sell the tank as scrap metal. If you can get it out of your basement at night with no one seeing you.
Imidazol97, I do have some heat shrink tubing lying around for such such a scenario. :shades:
Since This Old House films half it's projects here in MA - it would be quite a job. Home heating oil is considered a hazardous chemical and tanks have to removed professionally.
Above ground units require permits from the local fire dept to remove. The sludge found at the bottom has to be sent to a hazardous waste dump and the tank itself has to be sent to a licensed tank disposal company. Figure $1500+ to do it.
"That there's an RV"
Filled up for $3.56 today; should remember GasBuddy, ten miles down the road it was a dime cheaper.
Later saw stations at $3.45. The prices went up just as I was lucking into the lowest price in the area.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The PFD doesn't amount to much when you pay $4.00 per gallon of heating oil and need 500-1000 gallons a year. Still, I feel privileged compare to the villages that rely on heating oil / diesel.... many of them pay over twice that.
Interesting timing what with the new 36 mpg combined CAFE standard being adopted today.
Has CAFE reached the end of its usefulness?
I find that the onions that grow wild in the yard, when diced up, add a nice accent to Ramen noodles. Just don't use the mushrooms, unless you want to go a'tripping! :P
With the high price of gas eating what we grow or what ever is on sale that week is the route we take.
I have a friend who lives in DC and decided to go completely car-less. He rides his bike to work, uses public transportation to get about to further away places, and can do all of his grocery shopping within walking distance.
The down-side? He's been hit on his bike by cars THREE times, in the past few years! :surprise:
Despite all that, our food budget keeps creeping upward as the price of food continues to skyrocket. According to my accounting information system at home, the food we bought this year is about 30% more expensive than the same stuff in 2010. Compared to 2005 when I first built that database to keep track, it has more (much more) than doubled. That makes me feel a little better about what our food budget has done: Doubled since 2005 ($250 to ~500 per month).
And, of course, much of that cost increase (if not all of it) can be attributed to the cost of fuel.
:surprise:
That's happened to us as well but I attribute it to the boy is now age 15. We affectionately call him the human garbage disposal.
"Dad - you gonna eat that?"