Chickens

My sister and brother-in-law just installed a clutch (herd? flock?) of chickens on their 20 acre patch in upstate New York. My next door neighbors did the same on their half acre a couple of months ago. The putative reason is that chickens produce eggs and eggs feed the family. Unfortunately, neither my sibling's birds nor my neighbor's birds have produced so much as an empty shell. Is this some kind of hoax? Not so, says none other than The Economist. Not only is it for real, but it is actually a "craze." (Read about it here: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13856313). So, why doesn't Rural Ways keep chickens? For the same reason that we don't keep a horse, a dog, a cow, or a goat: Animals require care . . . all the time . . . even on the weekends. Because our weekends, and even our weeks, are often spent traveling away from The Homestead, it doesn't make sense.

Electrical Outlets

When we bought The Homestead, we split the cost of an electrical upgrade with the seller. The house had an old 60 amp system that was somewhat inadequate. We got it upgraded to 200 amps, which was a good choice since most of the home's appliances are powered by electricity. We did not, however, pay to "rewire" the house, so we are stuck with the existing outlets. The home pre-dates electric service so the outlets have been added in ones and twos on an ad-hoc basis over the years. The living room has one outlet, the studio/office has two, the kitchen has three, etc. This isn't really a problem except in the studio/office. For nineteenth century homesteaders, we have a suprising number of electronic devices: two modems, three printers, two scanners, two computers, two cameras, and a phone. Dear Fire Marshall, does this look like a problem to you? Rural Ways has no training in energy engineering, but is available for consulting on the construction of power-strip daisy-chains such as the one pictured.

Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers was "unveiled" today. Sounds like a good deal for clunkers drivers, huh? Rural Ways drives two clunkers: A 1993 Chevy pick-up with a 5.7 liter V8 and about 150,000 miles; plus, a 1995 Mercury Sable with a V6 and 180,000 miles. But these don't qualify as clunkers under the $1 billion dollar program. In order to qualify, the Chev needs to get less than 15 miles to the gallon. It could be close. If we drove it like most people drive (with two speeds: full-on and full-off) we'd get probably 12 or 13. But we like to use hyper-miling techniques to get 16 to 20(http://www.hypermiling.com/). For the car, we'd need to get less than 18 miles per gallon. Even with a V6, gentle driving can yield more than 30 mpg on the old Sable, so there is no way. The "environmental" reasoning behind this part of the program is that inefficient vehicles will be replaced by more efficient vehicles.

Of course, even if one of our vehicles did qualify, we would want to trade it in for a "used" car since that is where the long term value is. But, no, the money is only available to purchase a new vehicle. The "economic" reasoning behind this part of the program is that it doesn't help Detroit to have people buying used cars.

Obviously, the cash for clunkers program is a clunker. First, it makes little environmental sense to encourage people to buy new cars. Sure, they may be marginally more fuel efficient, but the manufacturing process requires incredible inputs of energy, nickel, steel, cadmium, lithium, plastic, and etc. This is totally un-accounted for and cannot possibly be justified when compared to the long-term maintenance and preservation of existing vehicles. Second, it makes little economic sense for most families to pay the premiums associated with new vehicles. A used vehicle would likely provide equal transportation for half the cost and a new vehicle would likely come with a usurious interest rate that can scarcely be afforded by the average family.

Picking Everyday

The garden has reached its productive phase. We need to pick every day. After Friday and Saturday, I put it on the scale: Two pounds. That's one pound a day of fresh beans, peas, zukes, and yellow squash. Today we grabbed a large head of lettuce for Grandma and Grandpa. It has been a lot of effort to get up and running this year, but now it is starting to pay off. What does a head of lettuce cost at Food Town? I don't know, but my sister and brother-in-law have done some calculations that show a direct financial benefit from the garden. When they send the numbers, I'll post 'em.