Good morning!!!!

[buckeyefarmer]

Since building my house in 1997 i have spent $76,786 on :
Electric $51,574 (529,258 KWH)
Heating Oil $13,600 (1997-2011)(don't know gallons)
Pellets $11,611 ( 45.68 tons)(includes 2 tons just bought for this winter)

My electric bill for this year so far is $3526, and 4 yrs ago it was $2623 for about same amount of usage.
I have electric dryer, electric hot water, geothermal and pellet heat, geothermal cooling, most lights now LED, and TV is almost always off.

 

[LouNY]

I haven't keep up with my totals over the years, I'm afraid it would be quite scary.
Until I put in my coal insert back around 2010 or maybe a bit earlier I went through 1300 to 1500 gallons of heating oil per year.
After that I only used about a 1000 gallons per year, along with about 3-4 ton of coal.
My electric for the last year has been around $3500.
We have the electric dryer, mini-split (2) for cooling and heating, the oil boiler runs year round for hot water. The coal provided a lot of heat over the years.
We don't watch much TV however my wife is still working from home so her dual display computer is on much of the time, and my laptop is on constantly for browsing and my cameras.

 

[WinterDeere]

...it seemed like it was race to see if I would get done before running out of Argon, but I made it with a couple hundred PSI left in the bottle.

Nice work! And I guarantee you just caused half this forum to ask themselves, "did I remember to close the bottle valve, last time I used the welder?"

 

[thclimer]

Lou,

Today I'm swapping my Massey's FEL for her front snow blower. I can now guarantee we will not get any snow for the next week, after that all bets are off. If I would not have put the blower on we would have gotten 1 foot next week!

 

[WinterDeere]

I haven't keep up with my totals over the years, I'm afraid it would be quite scary.

Ditto. I installed two wood stoves and burn 6 - 10 cords of oak and hickory per year, to get my oil usage down to 1000 gallons per year! We also run two heat pumps, and a little resistive heating, in addition to the wood stoves and oil-fired boiler. Oh, and propane to keep the garage above 53F, the temperature at which our garage refrigerators begin to malfunction, and to heat a basement rec room when in use.

The prior owner heated the whole joint on oil. When I asked him what it cost per year, he said, "I don't actually know. I own a heating oil company, so I sign the delivery slips, but I never actually looked at the total."

 

[ronjhall]

Utility bills include both electric and natural gas. Gas furnace, AC, gas water heater and dryer. Stove is electric. Water is from a well. My shop is heated with gas to 50° during cold months. House is 1,800 sq ft. Total bill for the last year was $2991. The one item using most electric is waterfall pump in garden pond.

 

[ronjhall]

The wait time for painting fresh laid asphalt must be 5 days. Camera shows crew is on site getting setup to paint strips.

 

[rswyan]

50F and "Fair" @ 11:30, calling for a high of 54F with winds out of the east @ 10 - 15 mph. Low this morning was 35.2F.

Got cages put around arbs yesterday first thing:

Was running low on rebar wire ties, so only used 1 per stake. Probably will go back and add another on each stake.

Also got the cage put around the red maple and removed the plastic trunk protector which it had outgrown.

After that I headed over by the garden and got the aluminum extension ladder hosed off.

Once that was done I started hosing buckets and flat panels (plastic, FRP) out/off. Got a lot of that done but still a few more pieces to do.

Worked on topping off posts following that, only 4 left to go on those.

Harvested the 3 small sugar pumpkins, 1 tiny Casper, and 1 more Kentucky Field pumpkin. Also another 3 Honey Baby winter squash. Think that pretty much does it for the squash and pumpkins.

Woman seems to be done cutting down the weeds in the flower bed and wanted to light off Her burn piles so we did that. Was windy so piles burned pretty well but probably not entirely gone at this point as a lot of it was pretty green.

With all the underbrush having dropped leaves noticed a couple more nice large rocks further back on the property which I'll need to harvest and add to the collection at some point:

Woman broiled some ocean perch and flounder with rice pilaf and green beans for dinner, was very good ... other than I ate too much ...

On the agenda for today:

See if I can locate my Bluetooth headphones ... I think I may have left them up in the shop.

Mow down here around the house and get the leaves blown off the lawn and/or mulched before the rain rolls in.

Gather up the stuff that got hosed off and get it put away.

Beyond that see what else I can get done before the rain rolls in. It's coming up from the south and should be here around 17:00 or so ... so a more limited window for getting outside stuff done today.

Hope everyone is having a decent Wednesday ...

 

[daugen]

Interesting thought. A bit less useful for cleaning inanimate objects, but I will run with that thought. (But not with a Q-tip in the use not talked about...) Still, kind of funny that the design change lined up with the asset sale.

All the best,

Peter

I'm sure qtips gets down to insurance...really.
regardless of everything saying never use them in your ears, pretty sure almost everyone does.
A totally disregarded safety notice and they know it, sell a zillion of them, so only rational response to lower
puncture injuries and costly claims is to soften the stick.
you can buy nice hard cotton swabs but I sure wouldn't want them near my ears.
they are more for craft use

while Ken was blowing leaves so was I, getting filthy in the process due to how dry it is.
got the gardens cleaned out and full wagon taken to the woods, then sucked up the leaves so they
wouldn't get all clogged up when the heavy rains come tonight.

cut some flowers and took them over to landlady.
use them or lose them, would get wrecked by heavy rains

pushed the little mower, pretty active morning.
this afternoon starting to put stuff back in rv for next Wednesday's trip.

 

[daugen]

Utility bills include both electric and natural gas. Gas furnace, AC, gas water heater and dryer. Stove is electric. Water is from a well. My shop is heated with gas to 50° during cold months. House is 1,800 sq ft. Total bill for the last year was $1991. The one item using most electric is waterfall pump in garden pond.

Ron, you are just going to have to tell those fish and frogs times are tough and you have to slow down the pump
to conserve electricity...... is that pump on a timer?

1000 gallons of fuel oil
too bad there isn't another equivalent biodiesel fuel for much less money

ocean perch sounds good RS.

 

[sodamo]

70°F and .17 inches rain

Yesterday manage to stay annoyingly wet without decent rainfall.

Need to continue my limb trimming, wx permitting but also devote some time to horizontal clean up.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great tractor day

 

[Popgadget]

Nice work! And I guarantee you just caused half this forum to ask themselves, "did I remember to close the bottle valve, last time I used the welder?"

Thanks!
And I have nightmares about leaving the tank valves open.
And Ive got Argon, CO2/Ar, O2 and Acetylene bottles that get used regurlarly. Only the MIG welder seems to be airtight.

 

[Popgadget]

... welding still on my bucket list.

Also still want to get me a smoker sometime...

My suggestion to someone that really wants to learn to weld is to get an oxy/acetylene torch and lots of scrap sheet metal. It will teach you how the metal melts and flows, and how to control the puddle and add filler.
Also great for brazing and silver soldering.
Those skills will transfer to all other processes.
I have had a torch since i was a pre-teen, i somehow convinced my mom it would be a good thing.
It sure was, really upped my game motorizing my bicycle.

You could combine the two list items and build a smoker. If mine ever wears out, I would get one of these-

Meadow Creek BX25 Cabinet (Box) Smoker - Meadow Creek Welding, LLC

The BX25 Box Smoker is an excellent choice if you are looking for a backyard or competition smoker that is compact, easy to use, and fuel efficient.

www.meadowcreekbbq.com

And you’re close enough to pick up there and save the freight!

 

[WinterDeere]

Also still want to get me a smoker sometime...

What you imagine:



What you get:



j/k... I know you meant a barbeque! But to that second lady's credit, that photo was taken on her 100th birthday!

 

[Thomas]

Well, came home tonight and tried to start the tractor, hoping the tractor elves had fixed it while I was at work. Nope, turn the key, nothing, same as last night. Rain was imminent, so grabbed my meter and checked power to starter. 12.3 volts.

Decided to try the screwdriver jumping across solenoid again. Same as last night, no crank. Gotta more aggressive, arched a little harder and cranked. Jumped in and turned the key and fired right up!

Ran down and hooked up to the disc and got the garden busted up just as the rain started. Parked the tractor, shut it off. Waited a couple minutes, and it fired up as normal.

So this weekend I'll pull everything off the starter, clean, apply dielectric grease and reassemble. It looked ok last night, but best to be sure. I despise something that won't start when needed.

 

[Thomas]

50F partly cloudy sky.

Good day at work afternoon just putter on my list to do before snowflakes start dancing in the air.
This evening just going to numb it maybe YT until pillow time.

Enjoy your evening all.

 

[rswyan]

52F with temps falling and showers in the vicinity @ 17:30.

Looks like I made it inside just in time to beat the rain.

Had a fairly productive day.

Bluetooth headset located up in shop right where I left it.

Aluminum extension ladder taken over to the barn and stowed away.

Water Buffalo drained and taken over to the barn and stowed away.

Dump cart emptied of the stuff that was in it.

Previously hosed off items loaded into the dump cart and moved up in front of the garage.

Got all the mowing/mulching/leaf blowing done down here around the house.

Leaves and grass blown off the Cub deck and live trap with the Stihl blower.

Additional wire ties added to the arb cages. Was short 4 ties ...

Added more dirt around the northwest corner post and got that tamped down.

Discussed fencing situation with The Woman last evening, suggested that we should go ahead and enclose the entire back planting area, including the frog pond and the second flower bed (which hasn't even been created yet ... ) ... and got the "go ahead" ...

4 x 4's moved off the heavy duty saw horses to the hay wagon.

Heavy duty saw horses taken over to the barn and stowed away.

Dried mud cleaned off the 12" auger.

Pumpkins and winter squash brought in and put away.

Color earlier today before it clouded up:

Think that's pretty much it for "peak".

Time to go sample some of the beef stew The Woman made the other day.

Hope everyone had a decent day ...

 

[LouNY]

Lou,

Today I'm swapping my Massey's FEL for her front snow blower. I can now guarantee we will not get any snow for the next week, after that all bets are off. If I would not have put the blower on we would have gotten 1 foot next week!

Well I'm working on my sand/salt pile this week. Having to shift it around a bit, moving all the material to one side so I can redo one of the mafia block walls. Looks like I'm going to end up having to get about 5 more of those blocks and then I'm going to be ordering a ShelterLogic cover for it (ouch). Going to enlarge it a bit, the interior is 12 feet of working room and I'm going to lengthen it to 30 feet from the current 18 so even with a good stock pile I'll be able to at least keep the sander in there or one of the tractors.

Then I mentioned getting fuel oil today, that was even worse then anticipated ended up with 1174 gallons, $3642.19 for that bill. But the house is full and one of my tractor tanks was almost empty, but not now.

 

[Wagtail]

Good (Thursday) morning. Overnight Low of 2.5C and it's presently 19.3C, partly cloudy with a wee breeze.

The first stop, yesterday, was to check out the Lawn Tractor at the Church. It's an MTD 420/38 and (thanks to the intertubes) I've figured out what has happened to the steering hardware = it's fixable by me. Coffee with the Veterans followed by my weekly grocery shopping.

A surprising delivery of wood occurred in the early arvo, especially as they'd said it would be later next week. They've since done another 'ute-load/ton' this morning. I ordered 9 tons in all. I'm practically their best customer, not for the amount of wood I order but because I promptly pay-in-full. So, the annual "Wagtail Park Woodstacking Festival" will be starting very soon.

Later on [1600] I need to report to the local clinic to have a 24hr blood-pressure monitor attached. Which means heading back there tomorrow.

The intertubes [surprisingly, not TractorData.com] has told me where to find the Model/Date-of-Manufacture of the MTD, so I may attempt that repair today.

That's about it, take care all.

 

[Looking4new]

Ponytug, scavengers need to eat too. Just put a hole in your hogs and leave them where they lay.

RE; electric bill, mine so far this year is $1100.oo. Electric lights (all LEDs), water pump, two PCs on all the time, 5 fans on most of the time, a sump pump and the oil furnace. The wood furnace doesn't get lit until the temps get closer to zero. The 60" TV is never on.
Pumped another 100 gallons into the house oil tank after we got back from the vampires. My lottery ticket only cost me $76.oo out of the normal $104.oo. (I get the ticket for 6 months at a time.52 draws. This ticket is good until 26 April 2026.) The difference was 10 free tickets for tonights draw.

LouNY, $3.10/gallon aint all that bad. Try $5.22/U.S. Gallon the last time I filled the big tank. My next fill up will probably be in late February.