Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

That's great Sharol. He will have a good life I'm sure.
I heard from my sister who is an executive for the REC. She said she learned today that the propane company in Ottawa was charging $7 a gallon for propane. Holy crap!
I don't know how some people can keep warm. What I fear is that they will begin rationing it even though we've paid for ours in advance . If that happens we are in big trouble.
I may not be a family with small kids but I am old and I can't handle cold.
Maybe my plans for this year should include building a windmill for electricity and building a solar panel for heat!

 

[KsKingBee]

.

Well my DH got out of bed and fixed a lean to shelter that had gotten knocked down in the high wind. Then he offered to water the birds for me. I don't know why but I thought it was awesome!! I need to do something special for him to show him how much I appreciate it.

I help with the birds twice a day, watering, feeding, making stuff for them, and you know what? That Okie treats me like a Kansas King Bee!

I can't handle cold.
Maybe my plans for this year should include building a windmill for electricity and building a solar panel for heat!

We have solar panels on the roof and a wood fired boiler. More hedge wood (bois dark) than we can burn here on the farm so we keep our thermostat at 78 upstairs and 84 downstairs. That floor downstairs is so awesome when you come in form the cold. Our highest bill this winter was $!25 for electricity and was $20 last summer just for the meter charge. I filled the propane tank last fall for $1.34 pg, but the delivery guy said that since we only use it for the cooktop that it should last for at least four years or longer. When the days get longer the meter spins backward longer every day and that really helps. I didn't get the wind generator because of the upkeep and the payback is usually the same as the life of the equipment.

 

[Trish44]

That's great Sharol. He will have a good life I'm sure.
I heard from my sister who is an executive for the REC. She said she learned today that the propane company in Ottawa was charging $7 a gallon for propane. Holy crap!
I don't know how some people can keep warm. What I fear is that they will begin rationing it even though we've paid for ours in advance . If that happens we are in big trouble.
I may not be a family with small kids but I am old and I can't handle cold.
Maybe my plans for this year should include building a windmill for electricity and building a solar panel for heat!

I meant so say earlier sharol that I'm glad you found a good home for your rooster. Geez I'm glad we don't use propane here, that's getting ridiculous. Maybe you should find a way to put in a woodstove. I know if we didn't have ours we would have a much higher electric bill in the winter.

I help with the birds twice a day, watering, feeding, making stuff for them, and you know what? That Okie treats me like a Kansas King Bee!
We have solar panels on the roof and a wood fired boiler. More hedge wood (bois dark) than we can burn here on the farm so we keep our thermostat at 78 upstairs and 84 downstairs. That floor downstairs is so awesome when you come in form the cold. Our highest bill this winter was $!25 for electricity and was $20 last summer just for the meter charge. I filled the propane tank last fall for $1.34 pg, but the delivery guy said that since we only use it for the cooktop that it should last for at least four years or longer. When the days get longer the meter spins backward longer every day and that really helps. I didn't get the wind generator because of the upkeep and the payback is usually the same as the life of the equipment.

It's really nice that you share the interest of the birds & help with them, we're not all lucky that way. The people that built this house tried to make it energy efficient & in some ways they did, but solar panels would be nice to have too. We do burn hedge here in the woodstove & we probably have enough on our property to burn for the rest of the time we're here & beyond. That stuff grows like weeds here. I would love to have wind power here, but the cost if still pretty high for the equipment.

My little Black Copper Marans chicks have been popping out like popcorn today. I keep going to check & more keep hatching. So far I only have one Welsummer chick hatched & I couldn't tell for sure because it wasn't all dry but it looked like a cockerel to me at first glance. I wanted to get it in the brooder so it could stay warm so I'll look at them all tomorrow when they're all warm & fluffy. The little Speckled Sussex are all fluffy & starting to dart around, they're so cute, little chipmunks!

 

[sharol]

That's great Sharol. He will have a good life I'm sure.
I heard from my sister who is an executive for the REC. She said she learned today that the propane company in Ottawa was charging $7 a gallon for propane. Holy crap!
I don't know how some people can keep warm. What I fear is that they will begin rationing it even though we've paid for ours in advance . If that happens we are in big trouble.
I may not be a family with small kids but I am old and I can't handle cold.
Maybe my plans for this year should include building a windmill for electricity and building a solar panel for heat!

Yikes, that is crazy expensive. We heat with an Earth Stove (Catalytic). We buy some of our wood, but we are WARM all winter. It isn't cheap, but looking at $7 a gallon for propane, maybe it isn't all that expensive. We usually cut some wood, but DH has been so busy at work the past 14 months that we haven't had time.

I've seen plans for a windmill made with 2x4's somewhere (I can't put my hands on them). There is one between the Admire junction and Council Grove on highway 56.

 

[chicken danz]

I help with the birds twice a day, watering, feeding, making stuff for them, and you know what? That Okie treats me like a Kansas King Bee!
We have solar panels on the roof and a wood fired boiler. More hedge wood (bois dark) than we can burn here on the farm so we keep our thermostat at 78 upstairs and 84 downstairs. That floor downstairs is so awesome when you come in form the cold. Our highest bill this winter was $!25 for electricity and was $20 last summer just for the meter charge. I filled the propane tank last fall for $1.34 pg, but the delivery guy said that since we only use it for the cooktop that it should last for at least four years or longer. When the days get longer the meter spins backward longer every day and that really helps. I didn't get the wind generator because of the upkeep and the payback is usually the same as the life of the equipment.

So how do you cool the house in the summer KingBee? I haven't figured that concept out. I supposed I could have a new house if I could figure out how to harness heating and cooling from nature. Unfortunately we have no hedge trees and not many trees on my property because it has been cleared for farm ground and pasture. There is one row of them at the edge of the rest of the farm but that isn't mine. I can't see us having time or energy to cut wood any way. My wood burning fireplace is actually in the unfinished basement of this house. (It was finished at one time before it started leaking before I owned it.) But it is not energy efficient and all the heat goes straight up the chimney. I would have to have a wood burner outside for sure cause I can't handle the allergies I have to the smoke and to the stuff that is one the wood. I have directions to build a windmill for generating electricity but of course that is a project that has never been started.
It would be awesome to have daily help with the birds but that isn't going to happen. Nor would I expect it since it's my hobby/job.
I got some YAKtrax type things from work but have never even tried them. In fact I forgot about them until you mentioned them Trish.
We have ice. A solid sheet of ice covering every thing. No snow. A little sleet on top of the ice, but its a frozen death trap outside this morning. I'm glad DH doesn't have very far to go to get home but he's already about 30 minutes late. I sure hope he doesn't call me to come get him pulled out if he goes off the road. I think it would be way too cold on the tractor this morning.

 

[chicken danz]

Opened the backdoor and took a picture of the backyard and driveway. Wanna go ice skating?


Also I finally got my scanner to work. Here is a copy of the HOAGBA fliers that were sent to me.

 

[KsKingBee]

So how do you cool the house in the summer KingBee? I haven't figured that concept out. I supposed I could have a new house if I could figure out how to harness heating and cooling from nature. Unfortunately we have no hedge trees and not many trees on my property because it has been cleared for farm ground and pasture. There is one row of them at the edge of the rest of the farm but that isn't mine. I can't see us having time or energy to cut wood any way. My wood burning fireplace is actually in the unfinished basement of this house. (It was finished at one time before it started leaking before I owned it.) But it is not energy efficient and all the heat goes straight up the chimney. I would have to have a wood burner outside for sure cause I can't handle the allergies I have to the smoke and to the stuff that is one the wood. I have directions to build a windmill for generating electricity but of course that is a project that has never been started.
It would be awesome to have daily help with the birds but that isn't going to happen. Nor would I expect it since it's my hobby/job.
.

You know it can either be nice to have a hobby to share or it can be nice to have something to do that is your own. Just enjoy it for what it is.

We have a heat pump, being new in 2013 it is as efficient as they come but really below a certain point they are useless and that is why they have an electric heating element in them. So I installed a heat exchanger from the wood boiler into the air handler. We can set the thermostat to run just the fan and circulate wood heat if the radiant does not keep up. This system is still kind of new for us and we are getting used to it still. I have only now finished the installation of the upstairs radiant and we will be filling the piping in a few days and then we can start using that as well. So we have radiant floor heat downstairs, upstairs, wood heat in the furnace, and we heat our water with it as well. For those in between days when it is just a little chilly in the spring and fall we have an efficient fireplace stove.

This house is super insulated. The exterior walls are six inch and completely filled with Icene foam. The attic has 9 to 11 inches of foam on the decking and the basement floor and walls are insulated too. It is incredibly well sealed and draft free so the heating and cooling is really at a minimum. The salesman and installer of the wood boiler said that I would have to fill the firebox twice a day but he was wrong, I only have to fill it partially once a day unless it stays in the single digits, then I will load it twice.

Last summer we hardly used the air conditioner at all, the basement was really comfortable and the upstairs was not unbearable with the windows open.

If you are going to have a wood stove in the house you can't beat what sharol has, the Earth Stove. That was my first stove back in the 80's and it was wonderful, a bit hard to clean out but the newer ones are better than the early ones I hear.

 

[Trish44]

So how do you cool the house in the summer KingBee? I haven't figured that concept out. I supposed I could have a new house if I could figure out how to harness heating and cooling from nature. Unfortunately we have no hedge trees and not many trees on my property because it has been cleared for farm ground and pasture. There is one row of them at the edge of the rest of the farm but that isn't mine. I can't see us having time or energy to cut wood any way. My wood burning fireplace is actually in the unfinished basement of this house. (It was finished at one time before it started leaking before I owned it.) But it is not energy efficient and all the heat goes straight up the chimney. I would have to have a wood burner outside for sure cause I can't handle the allergies I have to the smoke and to the stuff that is one the wood. I have directions to build a windmill for generating electricity but of course that is a project that has never been started.
It would be awesome to have daily help with the birds but that isn't going to happen. Nor would I expect it since it's my hobby/job.
I got some YAKtrax type things from work but have never even tried them. In fact I forgot about them until you mentioned them Trish.
We have ice. A solid sheet of ice covering every thing. No snow. A little sleet on top of the ice, but its a frozen death trap outside this morning. I'm glad DH doesn't have very far to go to get home but he's already about 30 minutes late. I sure hope he doesn't call me to come get him pulled out if he goes off the road. I think it would be way too cold on the tractor this morning.

Wow Danz that looks hazardous, be care out there! Maybe you should get those Taktrax things on if you have them, you sure don't need to be falling out there either. Yeah the old fireplaces just weren't good for anything but looks & that's it, I had one in my house in Derby that was there when I bought it, it was mostly useless. I hope you don't have to go pull your DH out of the ditch.

You know it can either be nice to have a hobby to share or it can be nice to have something to do that is your own. Just enjoy it for what it is.

We have a heat pump, being new in 2013 it is as efficient as they come but really below a certain point they are useless and that is why they have an electric heating element in them. So I installed a heat exchanger from the wood boiler into the air handler. We can set the thermostat to run just the fan and circulate wood heat if the radiant does not keep up. This system is still kind of new for us and we are getting used to it still. I have only now finished the installation of the upstairs radiant and we will be filling the piping in a few days and then we can start using that as well. So we have radiant floor heat downstairs, upstairs, wood heat in the furnace, and we heat our water with it as well. For those in between days when it is just a little chilly in the spring and fall we have an efficient fireplace stove.

This house is super insulated. The exterior walls are six inch and completely filled with Icene foam. The attic has 9 to 11 inches of foam on the decking and the basement floor and walls are insulated too. It is incredibly well sealed and draft free so the heating and cooling is really at a minimum. The salesman and installer of the wood boiler said that I would have to fill the firebox twice a day but he was wrong, I only have to fill it partially once a day unless it stays in the single digits, then I will load it twice.

Last summer we hardly used the air conditioner at all, the basement was really comfortable and the upstairs was not unbearable with the windows open.

If you are going to have a wood stove in the house you can't beat what sharol has, the Earth Stove. That was my first stove back in the 80's and it was wonderful, a bit hard to clean out but the newer ones are better than the early ones I hear.

We have a heat pump also KKB & we got a new one installed in 2012 because the one that was here was so old & inefficient. We refinanced the house that year & got enough extra money to put vinyl siding on the house, the new heat pump & furnace, & all of the windows in the house replaced with vinyl as well as the back sliding door. This house being a berm house should have never had wood windows, but that's what the people put in here & they just rotted due to the moisture from all of the cement in the house. The back level is underground on 3 sides so that's quite a bit of cement. Yeah heat pumps are nice to a point, but that's why we got the new woodstove a few years ago because the one they had in here was also old & terrible to clean out. The new one we bought is great because you just open a door on the front of the stove & pull out the ash drawer & take it out & empty it. We have an ash bucket we keep on the front porch to keep the ashes in till they cool down. We burn hedge in the stove since it's a closed system & it burns really hot. Our bedroom on the 2nd floor is right above that stove & it gets cozy up there, sometimes to the point I'm too warm at night & am throwing off covers. It's hard to imagine, but they put sliding windows in the wall on the 2nd floor part where our bedroom is & the hallway to the other rooms. We keep them mostly open so we get air circulation up there & the heat from the stove gets in. I have an issue in the hallway with one of our cats who we think jumped at one point from up there & broke her leg, so I have to keep them open just part way so she can't do that any more, crazy cat. Anyway, it sounds like you have a pretty energy efficient house KKB. These people that built this house tried, but there are things we sure would have done differently if we were building a brand new house.

Oh Danz I got that info changed on the poultry swap page with the swap info you gave me, thanks!

HEChicken, did you get any ice or anything up your way?

 

[chicken danz]

So did you use closed cell foam or open cell foam? I've read a lot about this. I tried to get a guy to do my basement but he wanted me to get the wall studs up first. I have to have Air conditioning just to remove the humidity more than anything in the summer. I sweat profusely in high humidity regardless of temperature. Also who was the contractor that did the foam? I'd like to visit with someone other than this one guy I found.
Obviously I do enjoy my bird hobby or I wouldn't have so darned many of them. But it is super nice when my DH surprises me by offering to help out.....especially when it's so miserable cold out.
I have two turkey's pipped today. They are due tomorrow but they seem to hatch a day early once in a while. I'm having more trouble than normal keeping the humidity up in the incubator because they air is so dry in here. I ventured out to get a plastic bin for brooding while ago and had to slide all the way in and out. There's between 1/8th and 1/4th inch of solid ice out there covering everything. I've only seen one group of chickens out moving today and they came out of their pen and are hugging the south foundation of the house.

 

[tazcat70]

Danz what are the prices like at Gardner? I know it truly depends on breed and quality, but I was curious.