Discovering my freedom in Minnesota

So today I found two rocks and placed them on top of the wood stove for an hour or so. I snuggled them up to the fuel filter that’s outside draped a towel over the whole works and let them sit for a half hour. I then went out and started the generator. Runs like a champ. It did warm up to -8 when I tried this which is 20 degrees warmer than this morning when I was having problems.

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It was a little warmer here in the lower peninsula of Michigan - 104 degrees Fahrenheit - actual temperature. It was nice to work in my underwear today.

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I wouldn’t suggest welding in one’s underwear… Grinder sparks are probably bad too. :stuck_out_tongue:

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So bill, when people have outdoor tanks here they will generally run the 1/2 inch line into the house then place the filter then the feed line. Its Supposed to avoid freezing the filter. Not sure if this affects safety or not.

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Temps at Wilson ks. Yesterday aft. Were 7 degrees with 30 mph. North wind, something to experience .

:slight_smile:

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You had the same weather yesterday as I. I’d just as soon not experience it again

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I agree Tom but unfortunately we are at the beginning of the season. I think this was just a warning shot.

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Yeah this is mid January weather for Mich. Im dreading what January actually may bring. Ordering 2 more cord of wood next week.

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Usually when you hit single digits the wind stops, last note I saw _-13 and wind…strong text

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Hey Bill, how’s the snow situation your way? I think I heard there was a storm just pass that way, mostly missed us to the south, another is supposed to bring significant snow here around Saturday.

Regards,

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Hey Gary,
We’ve had about 15-18" so far, with only 8-10 on the ground now. We’re expected to get up to 12" on Christmas. The temps have been great the past few days, high 20’s to low 30’sF. We’ve even had some sun.
This week I’ve been making Christmas presents for the Grand kids.
This is a step stool for the kitchen

This is a step stool for the toilet.

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A challenging Christmas drive home. Typically a 3 1/2 hr drive.
We made it home this morning at 2:15 leaving my daughter’s at around 8:30 PM in the rain.
Two hours from home, I noticed some slush and ice on the road. I slowed down to 55 mph in the right lane. A few minutes later a car was approaching me from behind and stayed behind me for a minute or two. Not happy with my speed he/she pulled in the left lane and accelerated fairly fast ahead of me. As his tail lights past my headlights, he was facing towards the median ditch at roughly a 45 degree angle. He adjusted as I let up on the accelerator and he did a 360 right in front of us crossing over into our lane and slid sideways on the shoulder on our right as we passed him. We missed the front corner of his car by about a foot. I observed in my rearview mirror he proceed back on to the highway safely. He took the next exit off the highway, I’m assuming to clean his drawers. The key to driving in this crap as most northerners know, is to not panic and make sudden adjustments. I keep my cool as my adrenaline was coursing through my veins.
60 miles further up the road, the rain turned to snow and quite a few cars chose to park in the ditch. I then slowed down to 45 mph.
By the time we got to Two Harbors which is usually a half hour from home, I had everything I could do to keep the car up to 30 mph because there was so much snow on the road. Once we reached our 3 mile logging road, Mary looked at me and said, “well, we can walk from here” but we drove. We made it safely to the front door with quite a struggle.
We entered the house and it was effing cold with a breeze blowing right into the house from a broken window. Started a fire, found some scrap plywood, cut it to the window size and screwed it into place.
An hour from arriving here it’s 70 degrees in the house and I’m going to get some sleep.
The up side, we had a great day visiting family and seeing the new grandbaby.

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Glad you made it home safe Mr. Bill :relaxed:

Big difference in our weather, yesterday I was out DOW with the widows down and shirt sleeves rolled up. Even spent some time in the front porch swing. Low 70s are forecast for today.

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That sounds like a Christmas drive to remember. Makes being at home with a good wood pile sound very appealing. What happened to your window? That’s an awful thing to come home to.

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Thank you Wayne. That’s the first time I ever remember having and thunder storm in December.
Garry, I am puzzled about the window. We had 40 mph gusts of wind yesterday but the window pieces all fell to the outside. That rules out a bird flying into it.

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This is a little something I played with yesterday because a heat sink and Aluminum channel came my way. I bought these thermoelectric generators a few years ago hoping to set something up. I think using the gradient temp in a wall near the wood stove in the shed may be my best results.

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Hey Bill. I have some sitting in a box somewhere. Hope you have better results then I did. I think I was missing an mppt charge controller to regulate voltage better. At the time I was too broke to fill in that part. Keep posting on it please.
David Baillie

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Not a huge fan of working on vehicles let alone outside…in the heart of winter. Woke up to -16F this morning and waited until it got above 0. Tuesday I warmed the truck up to remove the 6-7 inches of fresh snow that had fallen Monday. After 15 minutes, I went back out to it and smelled burning electric. I shut the truck off and as I did, I notice the key was still in the start position. Dammit. Right then I was certain I burned all the windings in the starter motor. Sure enough. Thankfully they didn’t make me too big and I was able to barely slide under the truck to work on it. The snow, cold, wind and my ignorance played key roles in turning this into a 3 day project. No place for a tool box, so frequent back crawling to the underside of truck was a necessity. Roughly 15 times. Fortunately the plow and snow banks blocked most of the wind for me and the house was at 75-80 to thaw me out during my 15 minute working bursts. Really, I’m not complaining. I signed up for this. I knew what I was getting into when I made the decision to move up here. I don’t have to punch in a time card or fight rush hour traffic. So it’s all good.
The lighter side- My Son brought up 106 pounds of pork from the pigs he raised last summer. Now our freezer is overflowing with chickens and pork. Not enough room in the freezer so this is staying in the shipping container because it’s effing cold outside and I can lock it to keep curious animals out.
The coffee stays on the woodstove well into the afternoon nowadays.


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Hey BillS
These work best by the greatest hot-to-cold side temperature differential.
Ha! You can probably do that now with your extermly cold outside air.
Later: and for others now; roof-top guttered/downspout rain flow in the 30’s-50’sF makes for a nice cold-side replenishing source.
Woodstove just off surface; or engine exhaust hot-sides good for an easy, 300+F temperature differential. But. Careful. This can can get too hot for many cells construction and junction life’s.

Hey. If it was easy everyone would be doing it.
J-I-C Steve Unruh

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