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Prep of The Day Thread

I should make more than enough power in summer to run full AC even with 1 sun day and two cloud days. Summer is easy for solar. At our latitude winter requires you over panel and over battery.

I marked out the solstice shadowing over the last week. I now know which trees to cut for max morning exposure and what the optimal spacing is between rows of solar to avoid shadowing.

Going to cut some trees later this week and then I should get 25kW or so on a sunny day. I'll still need to supplement gen or grid Dec/Jan due to the weather and cloud days. I may add 10 panels this coming year.
 
xtry51 said:
I should make more than enough power in summer to run full AC even with 1 sun day and two cloud days. Summer is easy for solar. At our latitude winter requires you over panel and over battery.

I marked out the solstice shadowing over the last week. I now know which trees to cut for max morning exposure and what the optimal spacing is between rows of solar to avoid shadowing.

Going to cut some trees later this week and then I should get 25kW or so on a sunny day. I'll still need to supplement gen or grid Dec/Jan due to the weather and cloud days. I may add 10 panels this coming year.
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All set to plow your driveway with an electric pickup truck!
 
xtry51 said:
We are looking at KY for 5 years out when last kid is done with high school. That's another reason I built my system pretty modular. I can rent a box truck and move the whole thing. It would suck, but if we sell the house and thr new owners don't want it, I'm not leaving it here for them to waste.

If you have no kids and just a small cabin, Signature Solar makes half size versions of my inverters. You could have a 6kW 120/240 install for two people to power a 1200sqft cabin/house for probably $30-35k and never pay for power again.

The investment and install type really depends on how long you're planning out. If this was where we were staying forever, I'd pay to have an acre cleared and leveled, pour some concrete pads and mount all my panels on steel unistrut.
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In a similar situation - when last kid is out of High School we're bailing. Of course ready to be "bug out" with MUCH less notice if the flag goes up.
Current target is NH but I can't help feel that is tactically unsound - New York to the West, MA to the South, Canadian biosecurity state to the North and Maine to the East (think Susan Collins). And after the recent election the trend is just too blue.

Starting to think about TN but maybe AL/WV/KY too. Anything in particular that is drawing you to Kentucky?

F
 
kijangus said:
Anything in particular that is drawing you to Kentucky?

F
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Best neighbor on the planet, that’s what! (Me)

Loving KY for the most part. I’m a bit ‘up in the hollers and hills’ region so not a whole lot going on, but I suppose I prefer it that way.

Lots of good ‘old fashioned’ folks living the Appalachia life and making do with what they have.

My dad is in southern AL and he likes it. It’s beautiful there in the winter, but he heads back to his camp in CT for the summer.

I’d say if you’re looking for ‘community’, just about anywhere outside of a city in the south will bring you good old country folk. As long as you check your MA commie shit at the Mason Dixon and leave all that behind, you’ll fit in just fine.

For thread relevance, I got my starter kit for beekeeping for Christmas and I’ll be picking up my first colony about an hour away in Morehead, KY in April.
 
kijangus said:
In a similar situation - when last kid is out of High School we're bailing. Of course ready to be "bug out" with MUCH less notice if the flag goes up.
Current target is NH but I can't help feel that is tactically unsound - New York to the West, MA to the South, Canadian biosecurity state to the North and Maine to the East (think Susan Collins). And after the recent election the trend is just too blue.

Starting to think about TN but maybe AL/WV/KY too. Anything in particular that is drawing you to Kentucky?

F
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It is the most conservative voting state. Very high per capita gun ownership and recent sales trends. Reasonable taxes. Ability to buy 100+ acres for a reasonable price.

If we can get KY to pass a lethal defense of property doctrine like TX has it would probably be the best state to live in hands down.
 
xtry51 said:
It is the most conservative voting state. Very high per capita gun ownership and recent sales trends. Reasonable taxes. Ability to buy 100+ acres for a reasonable price.

If we can get KY to pass a lethal defense of property doctrine like TX has it would probably be the best state to live in hands down.
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Why do they keep re-electing McConnell?
 
headednorth said:
Yeah but he seems pretty good at getting himself invited over and over
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Not again. I’m going to make it my life’s work to get him the f*** out of there.

I don’t even want him living here after he gets voted out, either. I’ll camp out naked on his front lawn if I have to I order to get him to leave.
 
I turned the top half of my compost and mixed in some fresh food scraps and manure.

Will be doing another bucket brigade of fresh shit from the pasture this weekend and will put it right in the middle of the pile. This will be the last time I add anything (except for leaves) to this pile so I can use it in the spring in my garden.

Nothing says fun like breathing cow shit fumes and being able to smell it for the rest of the day :)
 
48V chargers mounted to a board for mobility and tied to busbar allowing choice of how many to run simultaneously while only needing one battery connection. This allows me to run my 2200W gen, 6500W gen or both at same time to recharge my battery bank.

I need to rewire the transfer switch into 20A outlets in basement now.

My grid usage in Dec was 30% lower than last year. I really need to get those Eastern trees taken down to improve morning production. I talked to my neighbor this past weekend since a few are close to our property line and near his garage. He's a great guy and of course told me to do whatever I needed, but no way was I going to cut down 100ft pines without being neighborly first. I'm going to backfill the pines with Hemlock to keep the properties separated.

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And the group of trees that need to come down. Blocking 900am to 1100am production on the shortest days of the year.

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I have been refreshing my knowledge on CBRN preps, especially fallout protection, given the chances of a nuclear exchange are particularly high right now. I bought the 2022 version of "nuclear war survival skills" and don't think I can recommend it over the much cheaper (or free all over the internet) 1988 version. The helpful "tips" added were poorly written and not useful. Example: it recommended powering fans and lights for your improvised fallout shelter from your car battery using an inverter, even though your car and inverter will most likely be toast after the initial EMP of a full-scale attack. It is nice to have the book in print though, previously I only had the electronic version.
 
I'm a volunteer for my towns FD. I was going to take Fire 1 first, but the spring class was already full. I had a MA EMT-B 20 years ago and let it expire because I was dumb.

Going to do Fire 1&2 after EMT and then assess if I can get a FF or EMT job and then focus more on the two businesses I started. One has been doing well and I really need to grow it a little more. The other is slowly forming up and I need more time to work on it.

I'm attempting to slowly move to working for myself 100% and being a lot more mobile. We still want to move to KY in a few years. I have a very well paying job right now, but the older I get the more tired I get of working for other people. We still have one child in high school and one in college, so I've had to go with stability over risk uo to this point but my window of opportunity is growing.
 
xtry51 said:
I'm a volunteer for my towns FD. I was going to take Fire 1 first, but the spring class was already full. I had a MA EMT-B 20 years ago and let it expire because I was dumb.

Going to do Fire 1&2 after EMT and then assess if I can get a FF or EMT job and then focus more on the two businesses I started. One has been doing well and I really need to grow it a little more. The other is slowly forming up and I need more time to work on it.

I'm attempting to slowly move to working for myself 100% and being a lot more mobile. We still want to move to KY in a few years. I have a very well paying job right now, but the older I get the more tired I get of working for other people. We still have one child in high school and one in college, so I've had to go with stability over risk uo to this point but my window of opportunity is growing.
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You can still become a male Dancer! LOL
 
Tallahassee said:
Ordered some chicks today. I was told there was a very limited supply this year, might want to place an order now.
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I got my first 10 in the spring last year. We ate two broilers and gave away a rooster as we cant have those and he would not shut up. Added another 6 in the fall (chicken math thing) The new ones just started laying and the old ones started to pick up again. I am averaging 7 a day with the 13 birds. I feel it will be closer to 10 a day come spring. We eat a bunch of eggs and give a few away but the majority have been going in the freeze dryer. I suspect I am close to 300 eggs stored up. They are a ton of fun and the maintenance so far has not been that bad
 
Buy an egg incubator and put it away. Know people near you with roosters so if needed, you can trade eggs for fertilized ones and expand your flock if needed.

Everyone who has chickens should encourage (or acquire) a broody hen and hatch your own chick's at least once to know how it works.
 
Was cleaning out my truck today. Realized with a 2 year old some of the "emergency" gear I store in my truck and my wife's vehicle don't take my son into account so I am switching somethings up there.

Got a metal molle panel I installed on the inside of my truck bed. Suggestions for a good axe that I can store in the bed of my truck that won't turn to rust quickly? Plan is to mount it to the panel.
 
A few weeks ago on a chance buy I bought a small drone, its a HS430 drone on Amazon for 55 dollars shipped, yes its straight from china but the darn thing is pretty easy to fly and has a decent 1080 camera on it, hooks to a phone threw its own WiFi signal and three Batts that run for about 12-14 min with the camera on.

I will say in a grid down it will be nice for someone to just fly it around the house or beyond to keep an eye on the perimeter and for the short cost of 55 bucks a few can be bought and put away for just such a use.

My son in law has a better one that will stabilize its self and can return when running low on Batts. But for 55 dollars you get a birds eye view of your yard and several can be had.
 

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