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Six years ago my wife and I purchased some forest acreage. Three years ago we retreated there. This thread will be for sharing photographs, anecdotes and ramblings. Please feel free to ask questions; apologies if they do not get answered. Follow along as we make ordinary life more difficult than it needs to be.                 To the familiar, welcome back!
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Feb 26, 2016 14:34
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 15:00 |
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Feb 26, 2016 14:37
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Feb 26, 2016 14:46
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Feb 26, 2016 14:57
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Gegil posted:Thanks for sharing the awesome photos Apatite. Did you ever change your mind about selling that awesome Syrup to goons? Last year's syrup haul was all sold locally in as much bulk as possible to make it fast and easy. Going to take this year off from production as I have enough in storage to last us through the year and need to focus on other things, like getting my building permit in order for a garage/shop (and then actually building it)
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Feb 26, 2016 20:02
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We've been getting a lot of ice storms this year, it sucks pretty bad. Here's some pics                  This is a little meter I got from amazon, it works pretty well for monitoring power coming in from the PV charge controller to the batteries. Shows current battery voltage, incoming amps, incoming watts, total accumulated watt-hours 
apatite fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 00:06
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Suspect Bucket posted:Hope nothing breaks too bad in the Ice storms. Good luck, love the photos! Ramp season is around the corner. Thanks, nothing too bad just some trees down. Hooray for ramps/leeks! Can't wait. With anything, comes "weenies". Hikers for instance have "weight weenies" that will cut their toothbrush in half and spend whole paychecks on the newest titanium spork. Automotive enthusiasts have "horsepower weenies" that will quadruple turbo charge their lawn mower because it could use some more ooomph. My particular brand of weenyism would be electricity usage. For instance, my momma didn't raise no fool. Running all the lights, some air circulation fans and other things on 12v DC power means for a lot of stuff I use these automotive type switches that can be had for free/cheap. This is mostly because they are free/cheap, of course. There is no need to hook up the stupid LED in the switch though, that's just wasting power  
apatite fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 9, 2016 17:21
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TheLastManStanding posted:At 13.23 Volts that's only ~200 watts, which is a pretty low/normal amount to be running. Yeah that is still just the array of what I'll now consider "four small panels", haven't seen it break 22A so far since installing the meter but we also just hit spring. I have new panels to put up that will take it from 600W rated total to 1800W rated total though, just need to put them up. Ran wiring this weekend  After that we desperately need a battery upgrade, the charge controller kicks to float usually around 1-2pm even after running it down pretty low the night before. That picture wasn't meant to show any kind of peak or anything it's just a random shot of the meter.Really just did not want to upgrade the battery bank without knowing I had the ability to charge it fully (without running generator every day), so panels came first even though we needed batteries more... Seat Safety Switch posted:How many batteries are you running behind those solar panels? We have 4x decommissioned telco batteries that are 12v, 90ah connected together to form a 12v ~360ah(when new lol) bank. There are two inverters connected, one small 175W runs the TV/DVD player/laptop chargers and is only on when needed, another 2000W runs our small fridge/freezer and is on all the time for that purpose. Various other things get connected to either inverter as needed. All lights are LED powered directly from batteries w/ 12v DC Nebakenezzer posted:Nice: lowbush cranberry /ligonberry / partridgeberry salad? apatite fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 13:50
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DreadLlama posted:Where do you get PV panels? Cheapest I can find on ebay is $188 for 100W. First batch I got direct from manufacturer (DMSolar when they were selling on amazon w/ free shipping). The last four I actually got on ebay (free shipping, this is the theme, shipping will kill you buying PV panels online). There is probably nothing wrong with all the chinese panels that the market is flooded with but who knows if the company will exist if you need a warranty claim so I bought some nice ones made by Canadian Solar (http://www.canadiansolar.com/) and paid $1.10/watt shipped to my door via freight truck with liftgate. This price should go down if you buy in bulk but if you are buying in bulk you shouldn't do it on ebay. If you are buying pallets do it from somewhere like http://sunelec.com/
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Mar 21, 2016 17:34
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Gegil posted:If you happen to be in the US. you can also check and see if your state offers any rebates for Solar. That's true, my state does but you have to be connected to the grid w/ a net metering contract and have a NABCEP ( http://www.nabcep.org/ ) certified installer do all the work. Also has to be your primary residence. For 2015 at least there was a federal credit available that does not require any of that Also, 'My Side of the Mountain' is on Netflix and I'm watching it right now at work apatite fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 17:48
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Haven't been around in a while, was out of town. Did a crap job draining on demand propane water heater and a pipe inside it froze and burst. Leeks(ramps) are up in full force and trilliums are about to start blooming. Going to try to replace this burst pipe. This fuckin heater obviously needed to be taken apart and cleaned anyway, good god that is disgusting.  <edit> We also have 2+ inches of wet heavy snow this morning and it hasn't let up yet so everything coming up in the woods will probably die apatite fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 15:02
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dreesemonkey posted:Yay, thread is back! I see you're back working again? You doing full time work or consulting or what? Yeah full time internet stuff, it's alright but the tech bubble is gonna pop again and then what?? Maple syrup, leeks, berries, firewood and poorly focused pictures of fungus, that's probably what
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Apr 28, 2016 19:22
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May 3, 2016 19:28
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A bird in the hammock is worth two eggs in the nest Worked on some things   Then it got back down into the 30s *F range and we got a bunch of hail and stuff. Weather has been real weird.
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May 16, 2016 13:13
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kastein posted:That happened to us too. Thursday or so? Went from nice and partially sunny to windy as hell and cold, then a hailstorm+heavy rain, then back to nice and partially sunny, all inside of an hour. It was Sunday, hailed four times throughout the day  Here's a couple other pics of what those poles ended up as   It is farther along now but no pics. This is a 'coat closet' w/ a shelf on top for rubbermaid type bins of seasonal clothes. If anyone hasn't guessed we have extreme seasonal differences, down to -20 or -30F in winter and up to 100F in summer so there is a stupid amount of associated garb and whatnot
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May 17, 2016 13:54
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May 18, 2016 13:19
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Stream is at August-drought like levels. Hit 97F two days in a row. Dog brought home a friend. We took the friend away from the dog. 
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Jun 1, 2016 13:56
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Yeah it was a young snapper. Real cool dude-- he wasn't nearly as much of an rear end in a top hat as the older ones! (Coincidentally you tell the sex based on the location of their... rear end in a top hat)
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Jun 2, 2016 15:19
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We really need to get irrigation to a remote field but don't have money to have a well drilled. Thankfully there is a spring nearby at the edge of a swamp but of course it is about 20-25ft in elevation lower than the actual field. A friend and well wisher(or maybe he just wants free fruit??) donated an old shurflo pump out of a camper, basically an older model of what we use for domestic water. The other day after work I took it out and verified that it has the balls to actually pump water that high. Testing method was highly scientific and should not be attempted at home without the guidance of a trained professional.    Success! Now I will set up a pole mount for our old set of 15W PV panels and the pump will run when the sun is shining, filling a tank approximately where the farm truck is parked in that pic. From there it will gravity feed to the trees, bushes and other things planted in the field.    
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Jun 13, 2016 14:18
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Another new buddy 
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Jun 16, 2016 19:38
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not ded yet, sorry for periodically abandoning thread for long periods of time. been eating stuff. free food good food     
apatite fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Aug 23, 2016 |
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Aug 23, 2016 14:11
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Most of my foliage pics have turned out to be garbage so far. Here's a few--        (actually in VT) (ginseng?) (summer)We just finished processing a ton of apples into juice, hard cider (fermenting now), applesauce, pie filling, etc. Thankfully we have 4 mature trees left from when part of the land was a cow farm and know some other people with trees. There are also a lot along the road and on State/County land... Here's some pics of that         Parting shot:  Hopefully will be back soon with more pics, not online much these days
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Oct 13, 2016 21:24
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beep-beep car is go posted:If this the kind of thing that if you owned the land it was on, and cleaned up the brush around it you could use as a firepit? That'd be a badass firepit. I'd recommend you get started right away, then please share pics Suspect Bucket posted:Hot drat that's a lot of apples. You ever think about keeping a pig or two? Yeah it's been the topic of many discussions, we just have a hard time balancing animal husbandry with desire to travel, gtfo etc. It would be a no brainer (IMO) if we had someone reliable/capable/trustworthy/willing to watch over things during brief absences but having little to no close by friends and an unhealthy distrust of people keeps it out of the playbook for right now
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Oct 15, 2016 17:25
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Well that escalated quickly..da OP posted:This thread will be for sharing photographs, anecdotes and ramblings. Please feel free to ask questions; apologies if they do not get answered. Follow along as we make ordinary life more difficult than it needs to be. Try to keep the internet detective stuff to a bare minimum, please? There is nothing wrong with innocent questions and I know it is fun to speculate and stuff like calling out the state on a blurry license plate and pointing out the model of a truck in a picture or asking where we are and what my social security number is are relatively harmless but -- please. Do it as a sort of favor maybe? I closed the last one purposely and took down all the pics, would like to keep this one up for a while at least. We're in the Northeast, not living like cavemen despite my MIL's constant assertion otherwise, and there is a building that is heated with wood. Basically go back and read DreadLlama's post, then reread the thread with that in mind and it will probably clear itself up. There, now that's settled and we can move on You know what's not really as much fun as it sounds like after a few months of drought? Three straight days of rain!
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Oct 22, 2016 17:12
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Wicked witches, hill folk and leaky vent pipes. That sums it up pretty well.. The good news is that I put up a 10ft gutter and piped it into the cistern so now we've got a functional rain water harvesting setup. Key word -functional-!! woopwoop woohoo yay alrighttttt etc. it is working pretty drat slick but for some reason there is only one place in about a thousand mile radius that sold bulk head fittings to add an overflow drain to the cage tote cistern tank. The bad news is that it snowed quite a bit today, although not much accumulation. That's bad because of the ongoing timberframe (aka post and beam) woodshed addition project. Currently have a dry stacked stone foundation and one hand hewed cedar sill beam in place but apparently really need to shift rear end into proper gear. It's not for storing wood though, need a place to put machinery like hydraulic wood splitter, snowmobile, fourwheeler and so-on. There will be poo poo for slope on the roof so we can try out a living roof on it next year as an experiment. It is taking forever because all the rock for the foundation came out of the trenches that had to be dug and I'm only using hand tools for the framing out of some sick desire to take too long to get poo poo done. Happy halloween <edit> Yeah we are going to tap this year, gotta do it we are running low on syrup and the addiction is flaring up anyhow. 3/16" gravity fed tubing maybe?? We've definitely got the drop to really get it flowing. Gotta get some fundage. Really need a proper building. Want to build a 2x8 evap and buy 2x6 flue pan and 2x2 syrup pan or something like that. "Maybe next year on that stuff though..." Ugh Cider is almost done fermenting so I will let you all know how that turns out. A couple of smaller batches we added sugar to for apple wine but most will only come out to 7% if my hydrometer is right which it loving better be apatite fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Oct 28, 2016 |
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Oct 28, 2016 03:52
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Draadnagel posted:He man, Hey, There is a 50acre piece that borders mine for sale right now, $1k per acre and I'm broke so someone else will end up with it. That sucker could be you! Also, we ain't ded yet  
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Mar 23, 2017 22:46
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Keetron posted:So long no new pictures, what can I do to have you post a few?        
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May 16, 2017 11:52
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Keetron posted:Is that a snake spine? I really don't know, it was just chilling on this moss on top of a rock by the stream 
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May 17, 2017 01:12
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DreadLlama posted:If you've got a stream you could probably plant some silver maples along it. Tappable in 10 years, you know. My local conservation authority has saplings for a dollar apiece. Yeah we actually planted a bunch that we got for free from a nursery but honestly there was no point in it because we've got thousands of sugar maples in various life stages. The silvers really are a nice tree though and I'd suggest them to anyone, especially for wetter areas. Good call!
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May 17, 2017 20:22
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 15:00 |
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Long time, no post. Feel sort of dirty doing this after not being around for a while and maybe it's even against the rules? but here's a link to SA-Mart thread with some of this year's left over syrup for sale https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3825993 All funds raised go to mega-upgrade fund to get me to mid size commercial producer scale so that maybe we can make a profit some day instead of doing it for the love of concentrated tree blood
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Jul 6, 2017 00:32
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