Good morning!!!!

[Popgadget]

. geothermal heat pumps still the primary, but the pellet stove pretty much keeps the lower level geo from running much in the winter.

Which is less expensive to operate?

 

[Popgadget]

. Sorry you got top spot at Oddfellows by missing a meeting.

In full disclosure, I was at the meeting where i was nominated, and didn’t contest it. But i missed the meeting for the actual election.

 

[LouNY]

Which is less expensive to operate?

The last time I ran the numbers for heating cost was this summer just before I pulled the coal insert out of the fireplace in preparation for a propane insert. At that time coal was still the least expensive, followed by pellet, then heat pumps, then finally oil, and then the propane insert. With oil still being much less then resistive electric.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Tractor Morning Ken,

Scotty,
My office is literally right across the street from there, depressing to see that when I go in.

Yes I can totally understand that !

 

[Buppies]

Wngsprd sometimes I think they show. The flake to get hits. Although Snowshoe did have wet snow flakes over the weekend

 

[kenmbz]

Morning all, 29 going to 59 and sun is on the way up.
Got dog walk at Peddlars, went into town to move some money to son's account.

Then spent a few hours splitting some rounds. Using the newish forks made it easy to move the rounds into place.
Almost done with splitting, even dropped some off for my neighbor, need some for a local friend and will split more to make up for that when I get time.

Be well,

 

[Popgadget]

The last time I ran the numbers for heating cost was this summer just before I pulled the coal insert out of the fireplace in preparation for a propane insert. At that time coal was still the least expensive, followed by pellet, then heat pumps, then finally oil, and then the propane insert. With oil still being much less then resistive electric.

Years ago,I created a spreadsheet with all the common heating sources where you could plug in your cost of fuel and it would give you the cost per BTU. It’s major innacuracienis that I didn’t include a factor for efficiency for the various heaters. It did have the COP for electric sources, but not for the various combustion heaters.
I’ll see if I can find it and share.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Which is less expensive to operate?

Hard to say right now, I used to monitor runtime of geo units to figure out approx electric costs, but haven’t checked that system in yrs probably.
Pellets now at $6 bag or $6 day, plus some electric for the pellet stove. Can use a kill o watt meter to check it, but will wait for colder weather.
I’d guess geo is less expensive now, but like the heat from the stove.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Wngsprd sometimes I think they show. The flake to get hits. Although Snowshoe did have wet snow flakes over the weekend

Radar was showing snow at snowshoe yesterday . I’ve been up cass railroad in Oct with snow up on that mountain.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My monitor systems still running. But I know I didn’t put the sensor back in the upstairs ductwork last year. Downstairs ran 88 hrs this month on first stage.

 

[FriendwithTractor]

Good Morning to All Who Celebrate! Currently a brisk 45° heading to a high of 60° Looks clear until Thursday when some rain is forecast. Serious frost on the truck this morning, needed almost 10 minutes to get that cleared up.

Off early from work on Friday, got the oil changed in the truck. Then went home and tackled one of the oaks. Not proud to say it got away from me and fell about 40 degrees off from where I wanted it to go. Know what I did wrong, cut too much of my hinge wood. Still, where it fell could have been much worse and it only briefly hung up. Just needed a tap with the Big Orange Wedge (Kubota) to come down. Oh well, nothing harmed, nothing damaged and I've got all my bits. It's cut up, just need to find the time to split it and then take it over to my customers. Probably should get to that before the rain comes down.

Saturday I took as a breather day, did a terrific job at making sure the chair didn't go anywhere. Campground owning friend's party was well attended. His father, who might be the most tightfisted man I know when it comes to money even sprang for a costume:

I didn't know we had Bigfoot in NEPA.

Sunday I pulled the snow-push out of it's hole and tried to attach the poly shoes I had purchased for it instead of the steel ones. After a bit of hammering away with the impact, it became apparent that the poly ones were too large lengthwise and wouldn't seat even if I cut them down because the holes were off. So now I get to have a nice conversation with Messick's to see if LandPride even makes poly shoes.

Dad came back from the farm, he got skunked again, no deer with antlers. He caught up on some football and then we took a nice hike up at the mountain to get some energy out of the dog:

Now I'm just wading through the normal Monday grind here at the office.
Main goals this week: Survive Day Job, Process the tree, reach out to Messick's and then see what else comes.

Y'all Stay Safe out there and Be well!
Prayers for all Ailing and Recovering!

 

[Popgadget]

Here is the Fuel Cost Spreadsheet.
Its far from polished, but it can give you a rough idea, after you update prices for your area. It han=snt been updated in years.

 

[m7040]

good morning, 37 to start with, warmed up to 47

Planning to go get vacs for flu and covid but wife is struggling to get mobile enough to do it. May have to do it on a better day

Burning a batch of Black Locust firewood. Very dense, heavy, lots of heat

Cut some too long wood pieces recovered from the barn work. Lots of embedded square nails

Progress on the barn is slow but did clean out an opening built into the field stone wall to frame and use as a shelf where the air supply will be mounted

Mostly, we have blacksmith classes as well at our local farm museum. We had a teen son take classes there and I went along for support in case he needed it with his mental handicaps

I was helper in the blacksmith shop during my apprenticeship days from 15 to 19 years old. Being helper to the master blacksmith was eye opening experience and involved a multitude jobs from making tires for wood spoke wheels to horse shoeing and much more. Watching the old blacksmith handle difficult horses by bending and holding on to a leg while working was something to see

 

[Popgadget]

I’d guess geo is less expensive now, but like the heat from the stove

That is the most important piece of the puzzle right there!
Its why I have a fireplace that i know sucks heat up the chimney, but... I like it!

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning! Low of 40°, heading up to 67°, sunny. The temps all week should have lows in the upper 30's and highs in the mid 60's, not one chance of rain.....

The wind didn't cooperate this weekend to put the roof on, but did get about 80% of the siding up in place. Basically the high gable ends need to be installed and all the trim work still needs to be done. Will work on that this week.

The forecast for the coming weekend shows highs around 65°, sunny and no wind.....
I'm hoping it stays true to the forecast then we can get the roof on.

I signed up for a medicare advantage plan this morning.... hope I made a good choice.....

Still waiting for an appointment for Dona's back epidural. We put a call into the Dr's office as it's been 2 weeks. They were waiting for insurance approval and said to call them if we didn't hear back within that 2 weeks. So......

Dona's back was really complaining starting last Friday. She couldn't get any relief over the weekend and is continuing this morning. I wish I could do something for her pain.....tough to watch a loved one struggle.

I bought a set of walkie talkies so Dona can have communication with me while I'm outside. They sure have been upgraded from the ones we had as kids. 10 channels, each with 5 sub channels.
When I was picking up the GS from school, we tried a range test. The school is about a mile away, they worked, but a bit of static. They are supposed to have a 20 mile range.... I doubt it.

Hoping everyone has a great start to the week

 

[sodamo]

68°F and .66 inches rain

Pretty much rained out yesterday, so football won out , but again I seemed to be rooting for the wrong teams.

Forecast for today is a continuation, but I’m hopeful I can start trimming branches.

Need to pick up EO for the Honda generator when in town for Happy Hour

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great tractor day

 

[rswyan]

57F and sunny @ 12:45, calling for a high of 59F for the day. Clinton Station reports the low there this morning was 30.1F.

Ten Day not looking all that great ... only high 40's/low 50's starting Thursday and through the remainder of the period. Rain due in late Wednesday into Thursday.

Refilled hopper feeder first thing yesterday, brought the 2 tube feeders in but out of seed for those. Also scattered some seeds for the ground feeders.

Got 10 lengths cut off the roll of welded wire fencing for cages for the arbs. Cages will be 4' tall by 28" to 30" in diameter.

After that I took the Cub and dump cart up to the shop and collected up all the 10' rebar I cut in half to use for stakes for the cages and brought them down to the house. Grabbed the rebar ties and a couple of hammers and tossed those in the cart.

Then loaded 5 lengths of wire onto the pallets forks and took those around and dropped them off towards one end of the arb planting line.

Came back and loaded up the last 5 lengths and took them back around and dropped them off towards the other end of the line.

Grabbed the aluminum extension ladder while I was over there and brought it around to the east side to be hosed off so it can be put away.

Loaded up the old water heater and took that over to the barn.

Grabbed a dozen 2 x 4 x 8's and brought those back over to the house. Woman took two and put them in the basement, put the rest of them on the saw horses by the overhead door at the garage as they will need cut down.

Then took the Cub and dump cart around to the west side and unloaded the stakes.

Woman had been weeding out back, came up around front, gave Her a hand folding up a tarp. She did another all by Herself.

Took Cub and dump cart over to the barn and filled a 5 gallon can with diesel and brought it back over to the garage and put it in the torpedo heater. Looks like it could take another 5 gallons.

That will get used until I have the Mr. Heater overhead gas furnace hooked up and running out there. Then it will get moved up to the shop for rapid warm ups and taking the chill off.

Headed around back after that and worked some on filling in and packing the last inch or so around the posts. Will mound the dirt up so the water flows away from the posts. Got about 4 of those done.

Noticed the bare ground was disturbed ... good indication that it got pretty cold yesterday (surface freeze heave)

Headed up front around 18:00, temp had dropped 10F from the day's high ... sure cools off quickly once the Sun starts to set.

Moved the ten 2 x 4 x 8's into the garage and closed the garage door before it got any colder and came on in.

Looked out the living room window and this guy was looking back at me:

Anyone need any hosta-fed venison ? ...

After dinner I went out and cut one 2 x 4 x 8 in half for the 4' section of stud wall I will put up on the west wall of the utility room.

Then took my coffee and the RockBox down into the utility room. Woman brought down the 2 x 4's.

Did some more wire brushing on the west wall.

Trimmed off more on the board the electrical box and pressure switch are mounted on.

Stacked the two 2 x 4's and measured to the bottom of the floor joists so I can cut the studs to length.

Cut another four 9 1/2" sections of R-11 to insulate on top of the sill plate between the joists.

At that point it was around 23:30 so I called it quits.

Checked email and the quote from the roofer had come in. Pretty rude as I suspected, Woman was very disappointed ... She was hoping it would be 1/3 less.

I'm guessing that it is probably not all that bad ... given the size of the roof and the complexity (it's not just two opposing sides)

Will get some more quotes.

On the agenda for today:

Dole out another week's worth of meds.

Hose off aluminum extension ladder and get that put away over in the barn.

Refill Water Buffalo and get the arbs watered. Barring further drought this will probably be the last time it gets used this year ... so it will get drained afterwards and put away in the barn.

Get cages put up around the arbs.

Probably some more filling in around posts.

Move more tools inside.

Beyond that just see what else comes up.

Hope everyone is having a decent day ...

 

[daugen]

RS, you just have to get out of that recliner of yours and get something accomplished one of these days...
hope we all get a nice drenching rain so no more watering.

sucked up one load of leaves and discovered deer had attacked my willow tree.
Second time they beat the heck out of it, half girdling it. I thought it grew slower after the last time, and
well they rubbed off quite a bit. But not all the way around so hopefully tree will recover. I walked back to garage and got
some zip ties and put it all back up, including the black stake that has a six inch spike at bottom.

 

[daugen]

here is part of inside of Manoff Orchards shop, where I go for my apples and pears

 

[ponytug]

here is part of inside of Manoff Orchards shop, where I go for my apples and pears

Wow! You are so fortunate. What a wonderful selection of varieties.

All the best, Peter