My time tonight is going to be limited, as I forgot to switch the battery charger back to "medium" from "low" during the generator run, and within 30 minutes of shutting down the genny, I got a low voltage scream from the inverter, and sure enough, the meter was under 12! Oops..... So, fired genny back up for an hour to put a bit of a charge on the batteries, but I don't want to run it into the ground on what I consider to be less than a full charge, so I'm shutting down Lappie for the night, and will crash around on here tomorrow sometime with the pictures.
One thing, though, I did get caught up with Einar :)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Woke up this morning.....
....After running laptop until 11 pm and that little six inch fan all night, and found batteries still up around 12 1/2 volts.
Got up, started a pot of coffee in a steel stovetop percolator on the gas stove, am sitting here enjoying the sunrise and beautiful morning, knowing that my coffee is already paid for, and am not going to get a partial bill for it from the co-op in a few weeks!
Got the wife her coke, ice was still solid enough to have to break it out of the ice tray. Freezer's still well below 32, clearly.
A lot of our meat storage is pressure canned anyway. The extent of the freezer's contents is really convenience foods (generic frozen pizzas, a few TV dinners, etc.), ice, and at the moment 40 lb of rice in the chest freezer, debugging it before it goes into 5 gallon buckets and gets sealed then stuck in the pantry.
Why 40 lb of rice? Simple. Priced it lately? I'll let you in on a little secret, by telling you a riddle: When do you get the best price on food? Answer: Yesterday. Any time you can buy a bulk size package of something to eat, you are coming out dollars, sometimes many of them, ahead, because by the time you finish eating what you bought, it's already gone up in price again. Yeah, I'm eating 1.28 a lb ground beef this week. What's yours costin' ya? (I know there are some out there who can't resist the comeback of 'we grow our own' or 'it didn't cost me nothing but some grass and a wait' or something..... well to you few, congratulations! I am sincerely happy for you, and applaud your frugality!)
Another reason to buy in bulk and put back when you can is, what happens if you lose your ability to provide? You self-employed especially, lose a day or two and you know what that does to your cash flow. When you throw on an extra job or two and make a few hundred bucks you didn't budget, go buy some food, go buy some of this or that, something that you need and will use. Sure, spen a few bucks of it on entertainment, but don't use it all that way!
Back on track. A good bit of our meat and most of our veggies are home canned. Result is we haven't got a great deal invested in refrigerator dependence.
Looking at a propane fridge out of an RV later today. Junkyard down the road has an old OLD motorhome in the back, with a complete absorption refrigerator in it. Gotta go do some horsetradin' with the fellow.
Got up, started a pot of coffee in a steel stovetop percolator on the gas stove, am sitting here enjoying the sunrise and beautiful morning, knowing that my coffee is already paid for, and am not going to get a partial bill for it from the co-op in a few weeks!
Got the wife her coke, ice was still solid enough to have to break it out of the ice tray. Freezer's still well below 32, clearly.
A lot of our meat storage is pressure canned anyway. The extent of the freezer's contents is really convenience foods (generic frozen pizzas, a few TV dinners, etc.), ice, and at the moment 40 lb of rice in the chest freezer, debugging it before it goes into 5 gallon buckets and gets sealed then stuck in the pantry.
Why 40 lb of rice? Simple. Priced it lately? I'll let you in on a little secret, by telling you a riddle: When do you get the best price on food? Answer: Yesterday. Any time you can buy a bulk size package of something to eat, you are coming out dollars, sometimes many of them, ahead, because by the time you finish eating what you bought, it's already gone up in price again. Yeah, I'm eating 1.28 a lb ground beef this week. What's yours costin' ya? (I know there are some out there who can't resist the comeback of 'we grow our own' or 'it didn't cost me nothing but some grass and a wait' or something..... well to you few, congratulations! I am sincerely happy for you, and applaud your frugality!)
Another reason to buy in bulk and put back when you can is, what happens if you lose your ability to provide? You self-employed especially, lose a day or two and you know what that does to your cash flow. When you throw on an extra job or two and make a few hundred bucks you didn't budget, go buy some food, go buy some of this or that, something that you need and will use. Sure, spen a few bucks of it on entertainment, but don't use it all that way!
Back on track. A good bit of our meat and most of our veggies are home canned. Result is we haven't got a great deal invested in refrigerator dependence.
Looking at a propane fridge out of an RV later today. Junkyard down the road has an old OLD motorhome in the back, with a complete absorption refrigerator in it. Gotta go do some horsetradin' with the fellow.
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