Klarissa Dreams

By the end of the month Klarissa Dreams should be out on the market. I'm looking forward to holding a copy in my hand and look at the story I've written. Klarissa Dreams is being published by CHBB.

No, I really can't wait.

This is the title of my story.

2014 Garden

Here is this years garden. I do try to change up parts of it each year for some really good reasons. One of them is I don't want something akin to a monoculture. Pretty much every thing would die after a while because you're creating a nutrient desert which is not healthy long term. Different plants use different a slightly different set of nutrients. Basically by switching everything around a bit it will enrich the soil.
 

This is the Wisteria. As you can see it's doing a really good job of providing leaves in this its second year. Probably about five years, or so, from now the tree will flower.

 The rose bush to the left is getting ready to bloom. Note the lettuce, it self seeded. Make sure you get heirloom seed varieties. Hybrids aren't designed to sprout like this.

Going to have quite a few Cosmos and I think I have some other flowers mixed in. 

 Here are some more of the Spirea's. Note the potatoes. What potatoes are great for in a garden is fixing nitrogen. They also do a great job of further breaking up the soil and aerating it to a depth of a foot and a half. Partially because of the potatoes is one of the reasons why the soil is so rich after three years. I do of course bury most vegetable trimmings also. One of the things that is great about potatoes is that they show heat stress than almost anything you can grow. If the leaves are wilting you'd better start doing some extra watering at night and keep a closer eye on the rest.

The strawberries are looking good. Found an issue with the last fruits where the ants were coming to eat them on the plants. I don't play that so I doused the plants with cayenne pepper. Let's see the ants eat that.

I need to harvest most of this garlic. It was planted last year and it's still growing now. When the ends of the stalks are yellowing it's time you can harvest.

Energy usage updates

   I'm looking over last years propane fill ups. I decided to mark them out on a set of yearly calendars. Pink highlighter dots are indicating each of the refills.

   Last year on April 29 they filled it up, had to call them six weeks later to refill the tank which they did on June 12th. That length of time was 6 weeks 3 days and 86.1 gallons were delivered. He slightly overfilled it that time, it's a 100 gallon tank and you can by federal law put in 80 gallons. As I recall the tank was actually in the last couple of gallons and the pilots kept going out.

   This year the last spring fill up was May 5th. Tomorrow is 6 weeks 3 days and there is 15%, or 15 gallons in the tank. Basically we can go for at least one more week, or maybe slightly longer before the tank is pretty much empty. I will be shutting it down once it hits 5%, or 5 gallons on purpose. I'm usually paid far ahead on the propane but the high rates earlier in the year killed my balance forward.

   If you have not done so you need to do a water heater wrap and that's what has made the difference this year. We're looking at a difference of about 15% which is a big drop. Of course during this time of year the furnace isn't part of the energy usage equation except for I think four days total and it didn't run much then. I'm loving the ability to see the difference in such a manner. It really lets you know that you're doing things right and making some headway on your energy savings goals. I'm going for 30% in energy savings this year which is about $850. We'll see if we make it but it looks like we're well on my way.

   It might be a while yet until we're able to do some more energy efficiency upgrades. That's something that takes money we don't have right now. Among the coming upgrades next year are two tankless water heaters and siding the house with polystyrene insulation. I'm expecting a further usage drop of about 20-30% winter of 2015-2016.

One more week.

So far it's been a really good week. I've made a lot of headway on "Offsets and Savings" and it's just about through all of the editing stages. Of course everything in the book consists of things I've done on my house in real life. Some of the stuff has been pretty successful, others a little less so.

One of the things I'm glad I did was that water heater wrap. I'm positive it's helped stretch the propane in the tank a little bit further. The last spring delivery is late April or early May. Then you have a delivery about the middle of July. The next one after that is early October when the fall schedule kicks in. It gets to be a long time. The propane company will fill it between the scheduled fill ups but they charge an additional $75 fee and the tank has to be almost empty.

As of earlier today it's been five and a half weeks since the last fill up and the tank is sitting at 20% which is about 20 gallons left. Basically in my house our average use is about 10 gallons per week right now and the tank holds 80 to 90 gallons.

Last year at the same amount of time after the last spring fill up I think there was about 10% or 10 gallons left. The delivery that came a few days after was 86.1 gallons.

We've had more people living at the house also so there's been more cooking and more showers have been taken. It kind of goes with the territory. Apparently I've done some good with that water heater wrap. I still to some more though to do to make the place even more energy efficient. That's why I'm looking forward to next years polystyrene insulation and stucco upgrade to the exterior of the house next year.

It's pretty obvious I won't quite make it to the next scheduled fill up so when the tank finally reaches about 5% which should be in about two weeks I'll shut it off temporarily. There's no way I'll be able to pay the extra $75 fee. I just turned off the pilot light to the furnace yesterday which I didn't think of doing before and I wish I would have. We'd probably have about 5 gallons more in the tank right now if I had. 

When I do shut down the tank we'll only have cold water in the house unless we warm it up in the microwave in a bowl. It'll be like living out at the ranch again where I was taking care of horses for two and a half years. Because of the limited amount of water coming out of the well you couldn't take a shower and you had to basically clean your entire body with about a gallon of water. Yes, it can be done.

Fossil fuel outlook

I've been researching energy efficiency recently. It has to do with a book I'm coming out with soon. It's presently in editing stages and coming along really well.

As a result of research for the book I also became interested in how much fossil fuel energy is available for our future use. I had to research it and the numbers I found aren’t what the gas and oil companies are making part of their ads.

These numbers are as of 2012 and they are US reserves we’re talking about. They are the official numbers which include fracking. These numbers haven’t been updated either and I think it’s for good reason they haven’t. For oil there were 29 billion barrels of proven reserves, we go through about 7 billion barrels per year. On natural gas there were 322 trillion cubic feet, we use about 26 trillion cubic feet per year. http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/

I know there were some additional reserves that have been found. The thing is all of them together add maybe a year that we have available. Regardless, we’re going to have a problem and it’s going to be sooner rather than later.

If you know what's coming, you can prepare for it. Hopefully we don’t run out but if these numbers are correct we’re are going to be importing every last bit of fossil fuel starting about 2020. Personally, I would hope more will be proactive about energy use. I'm preparing for what looks like will be the eventuality by trying to make my house even more energy efficient.

Upcoming!

   I sent off the majority of "Offsets & Savings" to a beta reader this morning. She remodels homes and does construction for a living. That’s of course a group of people who I think would be interested in the book. Of course many average home owners would be also I think would be interested. The entirety of the book consists of things I’ve done to lower my utility bills and I’ve also become a little greener in the process.
   The feedback I got from her is that she thought the book is really good which greatly pleased me. There are others I’ve also ran the concept by and they thought it was a good one.
   Since it looks like I mostly have it together the manuscript will now go through the various editing stages. That will take a little while I’m sure. I want to make sure it’s as clean as possible and readable though.

   Here’s the cover that I’ve created for the book. The image just fit the subject matter in my mind the moment I’d seen it.

   When the book comes out it will be available on Amazon and Smashwords at first. Give it a few weeks and it will probably be available at most of the other online e-book stores.

   Having the manuscript available to both my computer and Droid phone at the same time has been great for this project. It’s the first one I’ve worked on exclusively where the manuscript is on a cloud drive. Pretty much anywhere that I've been at I’ve been able to work on the manuscript. I haven’t been tied to any single place and it's quite wonderful. It also sped up the process a lot. I’ll be doing more books the same exact way in the future.

US drought 2014

There is severe drought in significant portions of the United States. Nevada, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona are affected along with a few other places like parts of Colorado where I live. Here is a map that shows the affected areas of the US.


Map courtesy of: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

If you are living in such states you really need to be careful with open flames, BBQ's, etc. The last thing you want is to start a fire that might burn down your house along with the rest of the neighborhood. One thoughtless moment and that's all it takes. 

It also is a good idea in the affected areas to go xeriscape with your lawn and use drip irrigation for a garden if possible. Drip irrigation systems can be expensive I'll note and not within my budget though I do have a soaker hose system that works similarly. I'm expecting drought issues to become even bigger in the future.

Now I'm not expecting to actually see a full fledged dust bowl. Significant areas of the US aren't plowed up these days like they were in the 30's which lessens the possibility considerably. Still, fire is a significant issue and will continue to be.