Portland OR: 65-90 MPH Winds - Is Your Generator Ready?

[Ivan Seeking]

It's not as if we are talking about using it on a constant basis, just as an temporary emergency back-up.

Oh, I thought you were teasing me about my NASA certified well system. Yes, in a real pinch Tsu could get water out of the creek for us. But water, hot water, and refrigeration get to be real issues after a day or so. We have enough wood to run the wood stove for months, so heat isn't really a problem.

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.

Its not really so bad now, but when we first bought this place, the power would go out just about whenever the wind blew more than 25 or 30 mph. And then the neighbor told me about the time that they were snowbound without power for a week. Also, being this far out [though not so remote as 15 years ago], when there are major outages, we are really low on the list of prioreties for the power company. That's what did it for me. It really becomes a practical matter of safety and peace of mind.

 

[turbo]

Moonbear, I grew up in a family of modest(!) means, so we gathered wild berries, fruits, fiddleheads (tasty immature ferns) and grew a big garden, augmenting this with wild fish and game. Recently my wife and I bought a little log house with a nice garden spot, apple trees, wild berry patches scattered throughout the woodlot, and lots of deer, turkeys and other tasty critters hanging around. We lived in town for the last 20+ years, so it's nice to get back to the roots.

As for the water discussions above, I'm wearing two belts and suspenders. The original owner started with a dug well, and then installed a drilled well when the dug well went dry during a drought. I usually use the drilled well for domestic water, and valve the dug well into supply the sill-cocks for washing vehicles, watering the garden, etc. There is also a 15' deep pond in the back yard with a separate 5 hp pump. The last resort is a stream about 1/2 way back on the property, but at 1/4 mile, it's a bit far to lug buckets. With the woodlot, an efficient wood stove, and a big chest freezer (don't forget the generator!) we are pretty much bulletproof.

 

[Integral]

This storm blew over with very little notice on my part. I did have to repair my shed roof after the previous storm. It looks like the seemingly unending series of storms is being interuped by 5 days of sun... I'll believe that when it happens. If it does, it may dry out enough to get my daughters window (which faces south and catches the brunt of our weather) sealed.

Ivan,
I saw http://www.ovallight.com/catalog/" product and thought of you and your midnight strolls back to Tsu.

 

[Janus]

Moonbear,

Your post reminds me a lot of my own childhood, as I was raised on an 80 acre farm in Minnesota(This was before my folks bought the Fixer-Upper, which was in Oregon). We not only had the vegetables from the garden but raised 20 head of cattle (with one milk cow) and chickens. Fresh milk, and eggs with a freezer stocked with beef and chicken (we usually butchered out the chickens in the fall, as it was easier than trying to winter them).

Not only did we need to help with planting in the spring and harvest in the fall, but a great deal of the summer was taken up by making hay for wintering the cattle. One of the nastiest chores involved this.

We had an old International Harvester baler that would miss a knot from time to time. When this happened, the bale would break apart as it came out the back. Thus the chore; You sat on the twine box behind the knotter, and as each bale came out you tugged on the twine to test the knot. If the twine came loose, you blew on a whistle. Dad would then stop the tractor, come back and tie the bale off by hand.
So there you sat, with the sun beating down on you and hay chaff sticking to you, tugging on baling twine. It was hot, itchy, and mind-numbingly boring.

 

[Moonbear]

Did this all influence your interest in biology or was there a different movitivation altogether?

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!

I think it was more of an influence on just my overall personality than on my career choices. I wasn't raised to be "girly." Nobody put me in a frilly dress and expected me to stay clean (except on Easter ); I was sent out to dig through dirt for rocks and pick bugs off plants. My boy cousins were raised the same...it didn't matter if we were boys or girls, we all helped harvest, and after we were done harvesting, we all helped shuck corn or snap beans or fill jars to go into the pressure cooker.

I enjoyed all my subjects in school equally, so if you asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I was one of those kids who would answer, "I'm going to be a heart surgeon, and cure cancer, and become the first woman president, and be a famous movie star." (Just a wee bit overambitious ). I didn't decide on a research career until I was a year out of college. I majored in biology because I wanted to go to med school "so I could help people," and something I stuck with more out of anger at the incompetence of those in the medical profession than because I wanted to be a part of it (a story for another time). In other words, I didn't really know what I wanted to do yet, but was too stubborn to admit it. I'm very happy with the career I've chosen, but so many others fascinate me as well that were I to be given the choice to go back and do it all over again, there are several other paths I might have followed instead, or I might come right back to this one. The reason I haunt the engineering forums from time to time is that if I had an inkling of a clue what an engineer did when I was applying to colleges, I might have wound up taking that path...the idea of completely designing and building something from scratch, and getting to see it in action when you're done is really fascinating to me too. Then again, considering my grades in calculus, it's probably best I didn't try engineering (those grades might have been considerably better if I spent any time at all studying ...I was one of those students who managed to get a lot of As and Bs without studying, so was very slow to acquire proper study skills when I couldn't just absorb material by sitting in lecture, but now I can teach others how to avoid my mistakes).

 

[Moonbear]

We had an old International Harvester baler that would miss a knot from time to time. When this happened, the bale would break apart as it came out the back. Thus the chore; You sat on the twine box behind the knotter, and as each bale came out you tugged on the twine to test the knot. If the twine came loose, you blew on a whistle. Dad would then stop the tractor, come back and tie the bale off by hand.
So there you sat, with the sun beating down on you and hay chaff sticking to you, tugging on baling twine. It was hot, itchy, and mind-numbingly boring.

Now I feel priviledged. At least I got to play with bugs and throw rocks at my sister from time to time (peach pits worked too).

 

[Pengwuino]

How much would a 4kw diesel generator cost anyhow?