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Here we go. They are talking about 65 mph winds in portland, and I think up to 90 on the coast.
I had better see if my generator still works. :uhh:
I had better see if my generator still works. :uhh:
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Moonbear said:Just get back to the house before it starts...we don't need you trapped in your office all night again because you're fearing that whomping willow, or whatever that tree is that tries to kill you in storms.
Ivan Seeking said::rofl: Its not just the one tree, its the other hundred or so. But I have the car down here tonight.
We have a 5KW Honda generator that, as near as Tsu and I can recall, hasn't been started in at least five, and probably seven years. I could hardly believe it. After a little prep and clean up - drained the old fuel, check oil etc - it started on the first pull.
Pengwuino said:Seems kinda loud for something you actually need to have running next to a house.
In The Big Chill one of the characters said the great thing about the country was that the whole outdoors was one great big toilet.Ivan Seeking said:...and out here, when you don't have electric, you don't have water or, by consequence, a toilet.
Ivan Seeking said:...and out here, when you don't have electric, you don't have water or, by consequence, a toilet.
People like us have wells, with electric pumps to bring up the water. No power, no water. I also have a Honda generator for just that reason (that and keeping the freezer and fridge running). We had an ice storm in the dead of winter a number of years ago that knocked out power for weeks in some areas. It gets really cold here in Maine in February. There were millions of trees down or damaged, thousands of which took out adjacent power lines. My nephew visited with a generator a few times, so we could run the furnace for a few hours and keep the house from freezing up. Soon after that, I bought my own.moose said:Really? Why?
Ivan Seeking said:...and out here, when you don't have electric, you don't have water or, by consequence, a toilet.
Polluted, or just because of all the mud and detritis that gets churned up when it's running high?Ivan Seeking said:Actually, being high in iron and various minerals, the water out of the creek is absolutely horrible; hence the elaborate well system once discussed.
No, I'm pretty close to the university actually, I just happen to live next to a cattle pasture, which is the view from my drive. The road doesn't get much traffic either because it doesn't lead to much of anywhere that you can't get to faster by taking a different road (other than other houses), but there are other housing developments pretty close, and I live in a townhouse right now (until I figure out if I'm staying or not), so not really remote, but it's certainly more rural than suburban right here. Though, you don't have to drive very far to leave civilization behind completely. I'm technically outside the "city" limits (I think it only counts as a city when you include the students in the population though...our "downtown" is about two blocks by two blocks :rofl:)Ivan Seeking said:Drinking the water directly is like licking a piece of rusty iron.
MB, you're fairly remote aren't you? The picture of the road near your drive looked pretty isolated.
Yep! I have a compact generator with a 5hp Honda motor that can help me save all the frozen food that we have grown (or bought from local farmers) over the past year or two, and that can help me keep the house lit and comfortable. If that is not a wise investment, I challenge any of the nay-sayers to explain why it is not. The city-dwellers may have the luxury of gravity-fed water and centrally-based services, but when those fail, they are screwed. I have a tiny little wood stove and have burned probably about 2 cords of wood so far this winter - the oil furnace has only come on a couple of times and can't have burned more than a couple of gallons of fuel at the most. If the electrical service fails, I will have to fuel the generator (perhaps a couple of bucks a day) to preserve our frozen foods, worth many hundreds of dollars. If you are not self-sufficient, you place your existence in the hands of the local bureacracy - not a really smart thing to do.Ivan Seeking said:What amazes me is all the objections to having a generator!
City folks, eh, Turbo-1?. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Do you want me to plow the fields using a horse as well?
Ivan Seeking said:Actually, being high in iron and various minerals, the water out of the creek is absolutely horrible; hence the elaborate well system once discussed.
Janus, how did you make out? I guess W Linn was hit pretty hard.
It's a system I well familiar with.Moonbear said:Janus, I love that concept of running water, "Run and get it!" :rofl:
Janus said:Maybe not up to drinking standards, but I'm sure it would still work for flushing the toilet.
Ivan Seeking said:We only replaced all of iron and mineral ruined water appliances - washer, dishwasher, water heater, tub, toilet, sinks - after putting in the new well system.
So many back seat drivers.
I grew up in the suburbs, but my mom spent part of her life growing up on her grandfather's farm. My greatgrandparents were long dead by the time I came along, so I don't know anything about what they were like, but from my parent's stories, they sounded a bit cold...they raised rabbits, and let my mom have the runt of one litter as a pet...but only until Fluffy showed up in the stew pot one day. I can understand that to a farmer, one rabbit probably looks pretty much the same as every other rabbit, but you don't give one to a kid to keep as a pet and then make dinner out of it!Ivan Seeking said:Did you grow up a city or country girl?
Janus said:It's not as if we are talking about using it on a constant basis, just as an temporary emergency back-up.
Kidding aside, I have no objection to your generator. I wish that we had had one back when we got our water supply from an electric pump. It sure would have beat the heck out of toting water from the creek, especially when it was under the same weather conditions as caused the power outage in the first place.
No, it really had very little to do with my interest in biology. When I was a kid really hating all the work it took to get those vegetables, I was more interested in becoming a playwrite. I would just sit down and start writing stories and plays for no reason at all other than to entertain myself. One of our teachers got us all copies of the script for Oliver Twist, along with all the stage directions and camera instructions, and I just thought that was the most wonderful thing...I was going to write a script for a movie and be rich and famous!Ivan Seeking said:Did this all influence your interest in biology or was there a different movitivation altogether?