We cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. Since 2000, oil companies working in the U.S. have doubled the number of wells drilled per year.
Although increased drilling has added new oil to the nation's supply, it has not done so fast enough to offset the terminal decline of existing fields.
We are going to have to import more of our oil. Period.
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Coffee Can Flower Pots
I made some flower pots for a friends garden from large bean cans
a local restaurant tosses out.
The flower pots:
* Have two holes in the back to let water out.
* Are coated in plastic lacquer paint.
* Sprayed with sticky craft spray
* Leaves and magazine pictures are stuck on
* Sprayed with auto clear coat paint spray, this seals the paper
and the sticky spray so everything is waterproof and smooth.
Joined: Sep 16, 2007 Posts: 921 Location: Oklahoma City, USA
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:14 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Let's see:
-got an agave plant and a bunch of seeds in the mail, including a canned package of a variety of heirloom seeds. The can went into the storm room, where it's around 60 most of the year.
-got my angora rabbits today! It was a few days earlier than I thought it would be, so now we're scrambling to get the hutch built. They are extremely cute.
-learned that mold floating on top and vinegar smells in my brining solution (where my ham is sitting) is perfectly normal.
I think I'm going to pull it out of there tomorrow anyways. _________________ What, so I'm in no end game
Move my piece right off the board
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:25 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
RedStateGreen wrote:
...a canned package of a variety of heirloom seeds. The can went into
the storm room, where it's around 60 most of the year.
Where did you get canned variety heirloom seeds?
RedStateGreen wrote:
got my angora rabbits today! It was a few days earlier than I
thought it would be, so now we're scrambling to get the hutch
built. They are extremely cute.
I'm sure they are
RedStateGreen wrote:
learned that mold floating on top and vinegar smells in my brining
solution (where my ham is sitting) is perfectly normal.
I think I'm going to pull it out of there tomorrow anyways.
Sounds interesting, keep us posted on how that all goes...
learned that mold floating on top and vinegar smells in my brining
solution (where my ham is sitting) is perfectly normal.
I think I'm going to pull it out of there tomorrow anyways.
Sounds interesting, keep us posted on how that all goes...
I didn't have time or energy to pull it out today, way too busy.
Now we have the materials for my hutch and a temporary cage for the bunnies (who are doing fine, but escaped from the box we had them in at 2 am so no one got much sleep last night ... they can jump, /duh).
And I'm about ready to crash... _________________ What, so I'm in no end game
Move my piece right off the board
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 10785 Location: Village of Idiots
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Prepared a garden bed for planting, cleaned the chicken coop, and dug a hole for an almond tree.
Yesterday I sorted wool into two colors. Tomorrow I hope to wash my first batch of wool. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:25 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Bought Mason Jars at the local Canadian Tire. I was surprised on how cheap they were. I was looking online for bulk buys but was amazed to find a 12 pack with lids and seals for $5.99 for 500ml and $6.99 for 1000ml. (50 cents and 58 cents respectively)
Used them to jar up 50lbs of almonds and planting seeds.
Worked on my LED Grow Light Garden (full story to come soon when I have the time to type it up) and worked on my LED Grow Light Garden Off Grid plans.
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
ki11ercane wrote:
Bought Mason Jars at the local Canadian Tire. I was surprised on
how cheap they were. I was looking online for bulk buys but was
amazed to find a 12 pack with lids and seals for $5.99 for 500ml
and $6.99 for 1000ml. (50 cents and 58 cents respectively)
Yeah they really are great deals!
ki11ercane wrote:
Worked on my LED Grow Light Garden (full story to come soon
when I have the time to type it up) and worked on my LED Grow
Light Garden Off Grid plans.
This is a project that you've really got to tell us more about! And
this is something that GardenGirl will definitely be interested in.
Here is a link with some comments and ideas regarding possibly a
similar project to make an off grid grow light garden...
visited the 'supermarket' today. renewed my angst.
Yeah, I hear ya. I was in a store today called "Big Y", I was looking
at a water bottle and they had one of their weird pricing schemes.
The bottle was buy 1 get 2 free. But here's the twist, if you only buy
one you get charged the price for 3. So you are forced to consume
more and punished if you don't! In fact a lot of things in their store
are that way and not perishable goods either. I wonder what
grandkids are going to think of stories like this...
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
ki11ercane wrote:
Worked on my LED Grow Light Garden (full story to come soon
when I have the time to type it up) and worked on my LED Grow
Light Garden Off Grid plans.
This is a project that you've really got to tell us more about! And
this is something that GardenGirl will definitely be interested in.
Here is a link with some comments and ideas regarding possibly a
similar project to make an off grid grow light garden...
I browsed over those links a little. Some helpful information.
For starters, my indoor gardens are not hydroponic, but actual earth gardens. I have literally replicated an outdoor garden in my basement in giant Square Foot Gardens. Initially it was to start pumpkin transplants for the spring and to teach myself gardening. However it spawned off into tomatoes, then other plants like carrots (grown indoors successfully), lettuce, broccoli (I have 2'x2' plants indoors under CFL) and swiss chard. (not doing so well but oh well) . Basically I am trying to grow indoors what people say cannot grow indoors, and trying new technologies. (250watt CFL's and LED grow lights) Most people are not using these very much, if at all. Everyone uses HPS and MH based on what they are trying to do. The problem with these formats is the energy cost for the food output. Sadly the cost exceeds the output, and with the fact I can buy a can of green beans made in Canada for 50 cents right now, right now is the time for experimentation when it's going to cost more later. LED growlights for example are challenging traditional knowledge of lumens vs. food output and are changing all that. (however people are resistant to change) I am literally using stuff that if you take it to a traditional "indoor garden store" they think I am on crack, however the growing lettuce and tomatoes in my basement do not agree.
So far since November when I started I have been about 50% successful overall, and I have been only experimenting with MH and 250watt CFLs. (I actually grew 3 foot tomato plants with CFL's which are high in the blue range and finally had to switch over to MH to make them flower, but I am trying to replicate the flowering with red only LED panels) But thats ok, I was hoping to fail a bit to learn. My next big learning curve will be outside in the spring when the snow finally melts.
My overall goal is to be able to grow "leafy" plants such as spinach, swiss chard, romaine lettuce, (already written documentation that this has been done) and all my seedlings (tomato, pepper, etc.) with LED growlights. I am using 16 watt 12"x12" panels in home made enclosures. The goal is to have 24" x 24" systems growing my lettuce and other leafy plants. Plants like romaine which can grow tall under LED will be housed in their own enclosures. I am estimating each 24"x24" space to cost 106 watts, (you need to add one 42watt T5 fluorescent daylight bulb to the array) or 0.106 kilowatts per hour. With the system running 16 hours per day you will consume 1696 watts or 1.696 kilowatts over that time frame, therefore thats how much power per day you're going to need to make per day. How you make that power depends on your setup and wallet. My project goal is to figure out the cost and equipment to feed a family of three a salad every day and then scale out for other vegetables. To be honest, the cheapest part of this project are the LED growlights and the cardboard, aluminum foil and glue to make the enclosures. The next most expensive cost is high output CFL's and MH's, then of course electricity. Right now electricity where I live is 6 cents per kwh, so if I have a system that eats at the worst 1500 watts per hour or 24000 watts per day (24kwh) or 720kwh per month, that's only around $43.00 per month to make all the salad, tomatoes, spinach, and whatever else I want to grow. If I converted my entire setup to LED growlights, I could cut this number down to 8kwh per day or 240kwh per month or $14.40 in electricity. I would expect this setup using solar only to exceed $14,000.00 in today's dollars. You'd have to mix solar and wind to get the cost down.
As I figure out more information and move forward in my project I will post it here.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:07 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
ki11ercane wrote:
For starters, my indoor gardens are not hydroponic, but actual
earth gardens. I have literally replicated an outdoor garden in my
basement in giant Square Foot Gardens.
Awesome!
ki11ercane wrote:
If I converted my entire setup to LED growlights, I could cut this
number down to 8kwh per day or 240kwh per month or $14.40 in
electricity.
Nice! GardenGirl will be very interested in your experience!
ki11ercane wrote:
I would expect this setup using solar only to exceed $14,000.00 in
today's dollars. You'd have to mix solar and wind to get the cost down.
I don't know, LED's can be wired for DC and I think with this sort of
setup it might be possible to rig it for direct power only, no batteries
and no inverter. So I think that would keep the costs down by a lot,
meaning you could do all solar for much less. And direct power for the
lights should work, plants are like batteries. When the sun doesn't
shine outside, they wait. It probably wouldn't be hard to rig up a
single light/planter to run that way to give you an idea if it would
work or could scale up. Just a thought...
ki11ercane wrote:
As I figure out more information and move forward in my project I
will post it here.
Do that, it's a fascinating project! Oh and if you need any sort of
help with charting data or anything like that, let me know...
Joined: Sep 16, 2007 Posts: 921 Location: Oklahoma City, USA
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:16 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
steam_cannon wrote:
RedStateGreen wrote:
learned that mold floating on top and vinegar smells in my brining
solution (where my ham is sitting) is perfectly normal.
I think I'm going to pull it out of there tomorrow anyways.
Sounds interesting, keep us posted on how that all goes...
Well, I pulled the ham out of the brine today. It smelled vaguely like bread, but no bad smells at all. I poked it several places to make sure nothing bad lurked inside.
Since I didn't use saltpeter in my curing solution, it was a grayish pink, but I was told this is normal too. It's almost done cooking, and smells great! _________________ What, so I'm in no end game
Move my piece right off the board
Joined: Jan 02, 2008 Posts: 347 Location: out dispatching ronan...
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:50 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Well done RedStateGreen! Green with envy. We're really looking forward to having pigs, and producing our own pork food
I rode 95km today. Just for fitness, but I'm working up to a 125km ride that I'll be doing soon for supplies. We're looking to pretty much ditch our car completely, we fuel now around $1.50/litre. So I'll be riding the 65km trip to Melbourne's Victoria Markets for all the deli items we're unfortunately addicted to. Especially parmesan cheese! Thought ultimately, we'd like to make that ourselves, as we have our cow in calf.
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Bought 5/8" dia x 50 feet of copper tubing to run LP gas in to the canning stove, and 60 feet of #4 stranded copper ground wire for the solar system. $203 total, including a couple brass flare fittings at Home Depot.
This morning I called the backhoe guy to get in line for terracing a third garden patch, and digging us a root cellar. I'll probably build the cellar myself, with some family help. I plan to go get some concrete blocks for that soon, and sacks of mortar, since I expect to have more time later, as business slows down, and it looks like inflation is going to follow the FED's actions, so that means buy now to beat the price increases.
As soon as the LP tank is moved to final location, I can order a truckload of R.R. ties to make the garden terrace walls. _________________ Local fix-it guy..
Joined: Sep 19, 2007 Posts: 887 Location: Land of the Tongva tribe
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:48 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
Today we officially closed on the 140 acres that we were purchasing next door to our 160 acres. We now have 300 acres surrounded by national forest on 3 sides. 2 wells with good source rock for water.
Our original parcel has no trees except one clump of a couple of acres of pinon pine. The new parcel is dotted with small junipers, pinon pines, and a few ponderosa pines.
We have been running cattle on our parcel for over 100 years. My family originally homesteaded the area in the late 1800s. The new parcel has not had any cattle for 10+ years but we instructed our ranch hands to move cattle onto it. It helps keep the grass down and the manure keeps the soil fertile. We lease several sections of national forest and rotate pastures so this gives us another 140 acres to use.
We dont have any big plans for it right now except using it to hunt elk. Each parcel qualifies for an elk tag so this year we will have 2 tags. I still have 5 months worth of elk meat in my freezer from last fall.
Anyways we are extremely excited.
joeltrout _________________ ENERGY is the basis of our industrial civilization and sustains our standard of living. It is the foundation stone of our national wealth. A nation starved of energy.....will be a nation of starving people.
Joined: Sep 19, 2007 Posts: 887 Location: Land of the Tongva tribe
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:50 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil worl
For those not familiar with land.
1 Section = 1 square mile
joeltrout _________________ ENERGY is the basis of our industrial civilization and sustains our standard of living. It is the foundation stone of our national wealth. A nation starved of energy.....will be a nation of starving people.
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