BYC Café

[aart]

It is supposed to cost between 30cents and a $1.29. to run a 700W dehydrator for 10 hours. Mine would be a bit less.

Is that calculated at your electrical costs?
Quite high in Cali IIRC.
Put a Kil-A-Watt on it to know for sure.

 

[Shadrach]

Mine is a snackmaster and runs at 500 watts. It is supposed to cost between 30cents and a $1.29. to run a 700W dehydrator for 10 hours. Mine would be a bit less.

I do not dehydrate as much as you for sure. I did not notice a difference in my electric bill...Which is about $220.00 this much. Natural gas is $15.00.

I take it thats $220 per month?
I'm not sure exactly what the electricity bill is for my house because it's combined with a three phase supply which runs the water pump from the well and the reservoir pump.
If I don't put the oven on and have this computer running I burn about 150Watts at night. Lighting accounts for 30 Watts of that.
Gas supply is butane bottles.

 

[Perris]

I suppose if you can afford to have 700 watts to a kilowatt burning hour after hour and are happy to do a few things at a time then they may do the trick.
My view is it rather defeated the object in some ways. Part of the point of drying out here is it uses free energy from the sun. I built a five shelf drying cabinet years ago and it worked well until someone backed their car into it. If my memory serves me the first year of operation I dried 18 kilos of figs.
The land here produces a lot of stuff without any agriculture added. I think we have seven fig trees left, nine walnut trees, 4 almond trees, three pomegranate trees, peach trees, plum trees, a couple of nispero trees, four quince trees, a few hazelnut trees, and this year a few of the olive trees have fruited. There are also a couple of grape vines and other stuff I can't recall at the moment.
The nuts I still collect and dry in the sun before storage. I get about one third of what the trees produce I reckon. The majority of the figs fall and rot along with much of the rest of the fruit. We did get most of the cherries this year and I have about thirty small peaches needing eating.
One of the people in the main house produces a grape cordial; he tried making wine and it was awful.

you are so lucky to have all those trees! (what's a nispero?) Doesn't anyone there like figs and the other fruits? Or is it just that the owners don't appreciate the fruit? It seems such a waste.
On the other hand, we have just one apple tree, and we've all had quite enough apple pie/crumble/sauce/anything by Christmas, though there's still plenty of the harvest to eat, so I can understand anyone with multiple trees being indifferent if some of it goes to waste.

 

[CapricornFarm]

you are so lucky to have all those trees! (what's a nispero?) Doesn't anyone there like figs and the other fruits? Or is it just that the owners don't appreciate the fruit? It seems such a waste.
On the other hand, we have just one apple tree, and we've all had quite enough apple pie/crumble/sauce/anything by Christmas, though there's still plenty of the harvest to eat, so I can understand anyone with multiple trees being indifferent if some of it goes to waste.

In TN we had multiple apple trees. I used to make pies, eat apples and feed some to the chickens and goats.

 

[ronott1]

I take it thats $220 per month?
I'm not sure exactly what the electricity bill is for my house because it's combined with a three phase supply which runs the water pump from the well and the reservoir pump.
If I don't put the oven on and have this computer running I burn about 150Watts at night. Lighting accounts for 30 Watts of that.
Gas supply is butane bottles.

The electric bill goes from about $165.00 per month to the summer high of $225.00 or so.

Also, these are balanced bills that adjust over time so the actual electric cost is much higher.

We live in a place with some of the highest rates in the Country(USA)

 

[pennyJo1960]

Yes you do Ron another big reason to stay here

 

[Perris]

We live in a place with some of the highest rates in the Country

yet also, at the same time (because?), you live with a bankrupt electricity supplier, PG&E?

 

[Shadrach]

you are so lucky to have all those trees! (what's a nispero?) Doesn't anyone there like figs and the other fruits? Or is it just that the owners don't appreciate the fruit? It seems such a waste.
On the other hand, we have just one apple tree, and we've all had quite enough apple pie/crumble/sauce/anything by Christmas, though there's still plenty of the harvest to eat, so I can understand anyone with multiple trees being indifferent if some of it goes to waste.

Lowquat.
The amount of work involved in keeping the trees productive, protecting them from the wildlife and harvesting the fruit is staggering. These are not neatly arranged orchards on flat ground. These old farms and smallholdings were meant for farming families, not what is currently incumbent. There are lots of these places in these mountains that have been bought by the more wealthy 'good life' city people who have absolutely no idea how to manage them.
It really pisses me off. They spend silly money on making the houses 'nice' and the land and the huge efforts put in by generations of Catalan farmers go unappreciated and to waste.
What is worse imo is once these people have finished making things 'nice' the places are no longer affordable for the local people.
These places need large farming families, not bankers, lawyers and marketing types.
So, lucky in one respect but I find it heartbreaking.
As you mention, just one productive apple tree can provide a lot of apples and keep fruit in the cooking for two or three months. This place could feed a large family and leave enough to sell to raise some cash.

 

[Shadrach]

Good morning Cafe.
Coffee is made.
Warm and steamy here. Low cloud rolling in from the North East so maybe some storms on their way.

 

[DobieLover]

Good morning Café and thanks for the coffee, Shad.