Only got 92% near Seattle but another interesting phenomenon was watching the dandelion flowers close up
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twenty characters worth of thanks Dan & Chris
Edit:
we had a pretty good show with the eclipse, but not complete like some of you more “northerly challenged” or in this case more fortunate.
I was in fact wondering if the auto darkening helmets would work. We scrounged up enough of the old style. I like to use them better anyway. Can’t break the 35 year-old habit of opening and closing them anyway.
Everyone here is sick. Our Bolivian students brought us a SA bug. Whole family was down. Just me and Jakob now.
Hope you get well soon. Here it is garden harvest time. So I am glad I can’t catch sick over the web.
I have put up 28 quarts of beams already have another 2 canners full cooking now and I think 2 more canners to finish putting in jars tonight. So that will get me all the beans need and I haven’t even picked all the rows over once yet. Not sure what I will do with them all…
I guess all the rain was good for the garden.
I have to start harvesting tomatoes to they are about ready and there are tons of squash so life is good looks like I won’t go hungry this winter.
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Hey Billy .
That bug made it to my side of the mountain
Don’t shoot. It wasn’t me…I’ve been to Georgia this week, but not up your way…
I’m getting better now---- just really tired. Jakob’s has turned into bronchitis I’m afraid. Everyone else is basically back to normal.
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Hey, Will this line ever get too old to use?
Look what followed me home!
And it was still hanging around at breakfast time. I guess I will start feeding it!
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DOW has been a bit slow for a while. Now we suddenly have several projects going. Fun, fun, fun…
You know the drill, right…loads of pics and vids 
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Mike
Is it a 4by4?? It’s got a little less rust than mine. Where is that envy emoji thing:nauseated_face:
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Just found out Sketchup has an online version now… way cool. Will be playing with it on the Hangout.
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Tom,
Its a 95, 2 wheel drive. Don’t be envious, I just drove it home last night, and it needs some big and little repairs I hope I can do mostly myself (and many I have not found yet…). The above picture is the best angle. The passenger side front fender wheel well is pretty much gone from rust. The Frame looks solid, and the bed is pretty good, especially for a snow belt truck. I didn’t want one that was too nice for a first build, since I will be cutting holes in it.
I am very happy to have found this Dakota, or rather it found me! I will post more photos soon.
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Rainy and cold today, first heating fire of the season. A little early for my liking even though I prefer cool over hot .
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Wow! You have my sympathies. Steady 66L-85H this week here. It’s still not time to cut fire wood here yet. pretty close though…
Yea it is the time of the year to start watching the forecast pretty close. First average frost date here is August 21- 31. Only a few ripe tomatoes to date. It’s pretty easy to lose all summers work. Firewood is put up a few years in advance but still needs to be moved to the porch. Yesterday I looked over the bc stoves for needed firebrick be and gaskets. Chimneys still need cleaning and inspection. I can never ready just run out of time.
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I’ve had to light up the wood stove 3 times this summer. We were real close to frost this week. All my tomatoes are still green and not even full grown yet.
I want to cut up 3 more cord of wood for this winter. Then I want to get a start for the next year.
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Bill,
How many cords of wood are you using each winter? We are planning on building a cabin on our land up there eventually…,
Bryan
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That’s a tricky question in a few ways. First of all, the wood stove we had was not efficient. Secondly our house was completely insulated. Lastly Our wood wasn’t seasoned. We went through 6 cord in this little house last year. The wood stove was used from September to June. I’m thinking 4 cord this year in our little 400 sqft house with the new stove. Maybe it will be better with seasoned wood next year?
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Seasoned wood will drop you about 30%. You loose a ton of heat trying to dry out the wood. I have a stove that just won’t make heat with green wood.
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Some rough math… a cord of green maple/ash/birch contains 320 gallons of water. 6x = 1,920 gal.
About 3/4 of that would have air-dried away, which is about 1,440 unnecessary gallons.
It takes roughly 10,000 BTUs to boil off a gallon of ice water, so total of 14.4 million BTUs. When dry, each cord contains 20 million.
So, you burned 3/4 of a cord extra just getting rid of that water. Probably that much again just from inefficient combustion. So I’m going to guess 4-5 cords in ideal conditions.
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Thanks for the numbers Chris. I will put up 6 cord either way. Whatever I don’t use in the house will get used up in making Maple syrup. We will be doubling up production next year.
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To our friends that live in Texas, I hope all is well and please stay safe.
Translating inches of rain to inches of snow would be more than 30’ of snow depending on temperatures.
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