Farmyard Boogie: January 2015

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Information 2014 & 2015

Perhaps this is all in my head, but I feel as though one of my jobs in our household is systems manager (since that is something that I naturally do well). As the systems manager (that I just crowned myself as), I would be better suited to my job if I glean more information about the systems I am attempting to manage. In my year-end books read review I do for my own benefit, I noticed that not only did I not read a great number of books this year, very few of them were aligned with my goals of furthering our agricultural life. Here were the books that I DID read in 2014 that help me have a wider breadth of knowledge.

In 2015, I would like to read more, and read more books that further our life goals. I am fully aware that information comes from sources other than books, but I worry that this is emblematic of the information that I have been researching this past year.

Here's to a new year and new books to read!

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Energy Audit

On Friday, we had an energy audit of our home. I had been really excited about it, too. The program sounds great- tons of rebates, air sealing, duct sealing, thermal imaging, and a ton of (arguably crummy but "free") lightbulbs.

For $99, I figured that even just the weatherstripping on the doors would be worth it. We also desperately need to replace our windows because the sills are so rotten they feel like a sponge. The program was offering a rebate of $50 per window. At least we got the weather stripping done on the doors, but that's about the only thing we got.

In the first 5 minutes, the guys spotted some asbestos tape sealing some ductwork below the bathroom. I don't remember if the building inspector had spotted that or not, but I don't remember it. One of the guys immediately said they wouldn't do the blower door test because it's too dangerous. The blower is powerful enough to agitate the asbestos and make it airborne. So that was that on the blower door test. They proceeded to do the weather stripping on the doors anyway at least. There was no doubt that the doors were drafty, considering you could see sunlight through the door frames when the doors were closed.

Then the other guy said they'd still do some ductwork tests to seal up where the ducts leak, and boy do they leak, but we encountered the same problem- that bit of asbestos tape. Not surprised, but disappointed.

When Guy #1 was doing the weather stripping, he left the plastic wrappers to blow across the yard. OK maybe he forgot? Then came the lightbulbs. Guy #2 went around and switched out our lightbulbs. We got 4 LEDs and the rest got changed to CFLs. Luckily, we got to keep all our incandescents, which we need for brooder lights. By the time the guys had left, we realized they didn't even leave us the extra CFLs we were supposed to get. The program supplies 25 CFLs, but they left with the extras. They DID leave behind 2 more LEDs and an extra showerhead, which was in addition to the one they installed. WHOOPS.

And as for the rebates, Guy #2 would only sign off on a few of them, and we only have 120 days to redeem them. No window rebate, and no insulation rebate. SHIT!!! Overall, I am really disappointed. At least we got our doors sealed up well. They didn't do any thermal imaging, but said we "probably" have insulation.

the white band in the center of the photo is the alleged asbestos

I don't mean to fault the workers for not performing those tests, but I'm definitely disappointed. I'm also planning on taking steps for remediation of the asbestos as well, and seeing what else I can do to make our house more efficient. On the advice of my friend Paul, I also plan on filing a complaint to Energize CT against the crew who came out and their lack of professionalism. I didn't go into a lot of detail in this post about all of the the things that went wrong that day, but they were numerous.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

2014 Wrap-up

2014 had a lot of turbulence, but we did manage to get some data!

Having more birds definitely meant more eggs, but we unfortunately stopped keeping track of eggs when we moved into the new house.

Some dates that we noted on the calendar:
2/22: Started Eggplant, Lettuce, Pepper seeds
3/8: Started Tomato seeds
3/18: 1st Penelope Egg of Spring
4/5: Started Squash, Watermelon, Cucumber seeds
6/14: Moved into House! :)
8/3: Fabio began mounting hens
9/5: 1st Tweeter egg
10/14: Planted Garlic in bed #1
11/3: Duck pond frozen
11/8: The Chop
11/14: 1st Snow
11/15: Ground Frozen

Friday, January 2, 2015

Winter Fun

Naomi and I have been hiking quite a bit, especially considering it's usually pretty difficult to get Naomi outside during the winter. I had been feeling like I had a pretty funless summer and just wanted to get out and do stuff. We've been out a handful of times and seen some cool places. I'm really enjoying getting to know my new area here.

We've also had a few fires in the backyard, especially so I can get wood ash to nixtamalize the corn we grew this past summer. One recent afternoon while burning some wood, Naomi came up with the idea to make foil dinners! Well, I just love foil dinners!! I also suggested that we roast an egg in on the coals, and proceeded to attempt to find the "best" way to roast an egg on coals. The internet provided me with just TOO many options. I also remembered watching Steve Rinella try to roast some pigeon eggs on TV once. His eggs boiled out and he lost most of the insides.

So the best thing I came up with was to hollow out an orange and stick the whole egg in it. I had cooked cupcakes in orange peels at camp once, so the method seemed the most familiar. While it was roasting, the sun was setting. I went to close the coop and grab the day's eggs, and I discovered that one of the eggs was cracked. Having nothing to lose with that egg, I popped a tiny piece of loose shell from it and set it right on the coals. An insignificant amount of egg white came out of that little hole and ran down the side, but also provided us a view to the progress inside the shell. Meanwhile, the other egg was doing who-knows-what inside that tangerine peel.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, we determined the eggs (and the foil dinners) to be done. The naked egg looked completely cooked through, and we figured the other one should be about the same, so we pulled them from the coals. Naomi got the naked egg, and I took the tangerine egg. Naomi's yolk was just barely not cooked on the top side that never touched the coals directly, which wasn't all that surprising. The tangerine egg was cooked perfectly. Both were absolutely delicious; like a friend and a hard-boiled egg combined, but somehow better than either one. We determined that the tangerine peel was both unrealistic in a woodcraft situation, and totally unnecessary.

After we finished our eggs, we pulled the foil dinners. They were PERFECTLY done, minus the apple chips that were right on top. Those burned, so we took them off. I'm hoping to make some more foil dinners in the not-so distant future.