Archive for December, 2008
Stretching Our Fuel Reserves
After busting through a boatload of firewood during the super-cold temperatures we experienced from December 13 through the Christmas holiday, I checked the level on our B99 biodiesel tank and the gauge is sitting just below the 7/8 marker. This means we’ve got well over 215 gallons of delicious recycled veggie oil fuel remaining. Burning [...]
Carrier Pigeon Diary 16
After the snow storm stopped and the streets cleared enough to allow travel by bike, we were finally able to break the pigeons out of the garage! Both Goliath and Big Beef sat quietly in their pigeon-port for nearly two weeks, disabled by our lack of studded tires and need to venture by bike in [...]
The Magical Energy Brick
Back on December 4, I wrote about the impressive North Idaho Energy Log. I’m still impressed with this tidy little compressed log, but I haven’t made the decision to purchase any additional logs beyond the samples I carted home on my Yuba Mundo utility bike. Instead, I stumbled upon a new fuel source to test: [...]
Carrier Pigeon Diary 15
I finally got around to swapping out the cog on Big Beef as planned. Thank goodness for Joe (at Joe Bike) for sending over his mechanic to my office today to perform the final swap of the cog. I had the tools and the stand, but not the confidence to deal with the hub effectively. [...]
Home Heating: the Year in Review
Listed below is a quick snapshot of our family’s home heating fuel consumption and cost over the past year, minus the cost of electricity to power forced air fans in the furnace. As a reminder from past messages, we heat our home with two local fuel sources: B99.9 biodiesel made from Oregon-sourced recycled vegetable oil [...]
Carrier Pigeon Diary 14
A brief update that the pigeons are still performing very well. I have yet to swap out the 23t rear cog for the 25t, though Joe Bike was most gracious in hookin’ me up with a pair for the tomato-twins. Several weeks ago I installed a Mr. Tuffy tire liner on Goliath’s rear wheel, to [...]
The Magical Energy Log
As I’ve posted here before, we’re heating our home this year by burning two fuels: Oregon-grown/harvested hardwood; and Oregon-sourced/refined B99 bio-diesel. Hardwood is fantastic but requires a good deal of splitting unless it’s aged at least one full calendar year, and even then it needs a very hot fire to burn effectively. In our specific [...]
Carrier Pigeon Diary 13
A point of clarification to my Carrier Pigeon diary entries: I’m riding the very first Carrier Pigeons delivered to Joe Bike in Portland. I very specifically asked Joe to build these bikes to the absolute stock specifications as provided by the manufacturer so I could provide very real-world tests on out-of-the-box product. Against his better [...]
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