Winter is on its way

[cpaharley2008]

A skein of Canadian geese just flew heading south over the house, beautiful birds and lovely sounds, soon snow....

[steve dunham]

Leaves are changing color , acorns are dropping like crazy , geese are flying, so I ordered 5 cord of oak logs yesterday and hope we make the winter . All the signs point to a cold one.

[cpaharley2008]

Steve, do you not know the old adage about wood heating you twice, once when you split and once when you burn it?? Or are your oak logs unsplit?

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Steve, do you not know the old adage about wood heating you twice, once when you split and once when you burn it?? Or are your oak logs unsplit?

Part of my order is 102" oak logs (not cut and split) and part is cut and split ( 16" pieces )
A lot depends on what I can get and the price
I use to cut my own but at my age ,dragging logs out of the woods is not practical.
Wood prices seem to follow propane prices .
If propane goes up wood goes up.
I've seen wood ( Hardwood ) as low as $100 a cord and as high as $300 / cord
Spring is cheaper than the fall (Supply and Demand)
We loose electric power a lot in the winter and wood heat works without power so it's more reliable.

[jennykatz]

Down here in SW Fl. we don't need wood we need boats to get us out of our streets when it rains like this last week . although nothing compares to Texas problems with water .
usually our Summer storms we can loose electrical power so no well water but that what our Escape 21 is for . We have a 2400 watt Yamaha to power up our escape 21 it powers everything A/C , water heater and fridge on propane .

[cpaharley2008]

I agree 100%, I miss my wood stove.I'm sure you are experienced in this but for others do not ever trust a 1/2 ton pick up delivering a cord of wood, after they dump and leave you will see it is not a cord, a cord weighs from 3-6000 lbs dependent on wood type!
Log Cord Weight Calculator

[rjbny]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

A skein of Canadian geese just flew heading south over the house, beautiful birds and lovely sounds, soon snow....

Speaking of winter, how much antifreeze does it take to winterize a 19?

[cpaharley2008]

A gallon should do it if you got the e-z-winerizing option, don't forget the w/h bypass, the p traps in shower and sink and release the fresh water pressure button outside.

[Vermilye]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

Part of my order is 102" oak logs (not cut and split) and part is cut and split ( 16" pieces )
A lot depends on what I can get and the price
I use to cut my own but at my age ,dragging logs out of the woods is not practical.
Wood prices seem to follow propane prices .
If propane goes up wood goes up.
I've seen wood ( Hardwood ) as low as $100 a cord and as high as $300 / cord
Spring is cheaper than the fall (Supply and Demand)
We loose electric power a lot in the winter and wood heat works without power so it's more reliable.

I heated my house with wood from the early 70's to 2011 when natural gas ended up less expensive (and a lot easier!) I don't have a wood lot, but went from "share cutting" on other lots to slab wood, delivered logs, and finally (gasp) paying for cut wood. Other than the free wood, slab was the least expensive at $16.00 for a full cord, while cut & split hardwood was going for $125 a face cord. Better than what my brother on Nantucket Island would have to pay if he didn't haul his own - last I checked hardwood was $500.00 per face cord!

I solved power outages with a 15K natural gas stand by generator & a whole house transfer switch. So far the longest run was for 5 days...

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by Vermilye

I heated my house with wood from the early 70's to 2011 when natural gas ended up less expensive (and a lot easier!) I don't have a wood lot, but went from "share cutting" on other lots to slab wood, delivered logs, and finally (gasp) paying for cut wood. Other than the free wood, slab was the least expensive at $16.00 for a full cord, while cut & split hardwood was going for $125 a face cord. Better than what my brother on Nantucket Island would have to pay if he didn't haul his own - last I checked hardwood was $500.00 per face cord!

I solved power outages with a 15K natural gas stand by generator & a whole house transfer switch. So far the longest run was for 5 days...

We don't have access to natural gas . There is a NG pipeline in the area but it is 2 to 3 miles away . Every one here uses propane or wood. Propane was $3 to $5 / gal a few winters back and many people in my area turned their heat down to the upper 50's and still had $1000 / month heating bills. The one redeeming thing was the lack of mosquitos.
My cost for a full cord of oak (4' x 4' x 8') is $150 cut , split , and delivered. I just stack it in the 1 1/2 cord wood racks I built.
There is a lot of dead fall on the ground from a tornado a few years back but anything within a half mile of a road has already been taken and the rest is too hard to get out without a D8.

[Greg A]

We've gone to a pellet stove at our cabin and never does the furnace run when the pellet stove is in use. Nice because it is on a thermostat control and runs just like a furnace and stocking the fuel is easy, inexpensive, and readily available. Drawback is, you need a standby gen, like Jon, for power outages or the pellet stove won't operate.

[Marry]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

A skein of Canadian geese just flew heading south over the house, beautiful birds and lovely sounds, soon snow....

Maybe it's too hot here... and take a flight to the south...
Yesterday 30C, today a little cooler, forecast for coming days 28C.

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

I agree 100%, I miss my wood stove.I'm sure you are experienced in this but for others do not ever trust a 1/2 ton pick up delivering a cord of wood, after they dump and leave you will see it is not a cord, a cord weighs from 3-6000 lbs dependent on wood type!
Log Cord Weight Calculator

My wood is delivered by a one ton Ram 3500 dually diesel towing a 24 ft dual axle trailer with tilt bed. He just backs up in my driveway and dumps the wood . My wood racks when full to the top hold 1 1/2 full cords . He has never given me a short load , usually he is a little over . Up here where wood is a common fuel if you short load the word gets out pretty quick and your business dries up.
We thought about switching to a pellet stove cause there is a wood pellet plant near us but as others have said without electricity a pellet stove is just a piece of furniture.
Our cabin has R35 walls and R60 ceilings so we can heat our 1800 sq ft cabin easily with our Quadra Fire wood stove , in fact we often open the windows in winter cause it's too warm in the cabin.
Anything abover 72 deg F is too tropical for our liking.

[Chris & Patricia]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

A skein of Canadian geese just flew heading south over the house, beautiful birds and lovely sounds, soon snow....

In British Columbia, all we have is dry weather, wildfires burning everywhere, and temperatures on the coast in the upper 20'sC (i.e. low 80sF) and in the interior, well into the 30s (90F plus). The snow on the mountains is still melting for last year and is nowhere close to winter.

[J Mac]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

A skein of Canadian geese just flew heading south over the house, beautiful birds and lovely sounds, soon snow....

I wish you could keep this and every skein!!.
The Canada Goose is not a very popular bird on play grounds, soccer fields, picnic areas, baseball parks or grassy areas near the beach. The mess these 'beautiful birds with the lovely sounds' leave behind them is uncontrollable. I think they're damn lucky they don't taste good!!

[wetzk]

Yep winter is on the way.
Just finished rototilling the garden. I have tomatoes and lots of other seeds in starter pots ready to plant in October.
And one of the trees is bearing again this year. I have 6 fruits on it this time. Last year we had 4 fruits and the total weight was 96 pounds. One weighed a couple ounces less than 40 pounds.
Here is a 3 week old baby. It might tip the scale at a pound and a half.

[cpaharley2008]

What kind of fruit is that? I do not think I have ever seen one....

[wetzk]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

What kind of fruit is that? I do not think I have ever seen one....

Jackfruit, they can weigh up to 80 pounds and are the largest fruit.
Taste wise somewhere between banana, pineapple, papaya.
The seeds are good too.
You can do what I am going to try with one of the unripe ones as a meat substitute. I've had jerked jackfruit before and it had a similar texture to pork and a unique flavor.
They are tropical and mature ones can survive to 28 degrees. Which does not happen here so this one is about 15 years old.
Since I kept 6 this year they probably will not weigh more than 25 pounds.

[Steve Clark]

Originally Posted by J Mac

I wish you could keep this and every skein!!.
The Canada Goose is not a very popular bird on play grounds, soccer fields, picnic areas, baseball parks or grassy areas near the beach. The mess these 'beautiful birds with the lovely sounds' leave behind them is uncontrollable. I think they're damn lucky they don't taste good!!

They are a very 'productive' bird, J Mac. Our local park rangers estimate they drop approx. 1lb. a day each. That's a lot of mess!

[wetzk]

Originally Posted by Steve Clark

They are a very 'productive' bird, J Mac. Our local park rangers estimate they drop approx. 1lb. a day each. That's a lot of mess!

One day we were out in our convertible car. As we headed south towards Englewood a pelican took off and crossed our path.
Pelicans poop as they start flight.
It looked like he dumped a gallon of crap on us.