Seed starting

Guess I'm gonna try doing my own seedlings again, at least for some stuff :)


Putnam Farmer's Co-op:
Tomato, Big Boy, 20 seeds, $2.19
Tomato, Large Red Cherry, 180mg, $1.39

Southern Seed Exchange:
Long Keeper Tomatoes (bought last year)

I already had some flats I bought years ago in the garage to use, so no cash expense this year for them. Soil is down below, $4.95 + .30, hope it's enough.

Variation from Organic Gardening #1 this year: The potting soil is Miracle Gro. Didn't really even pay attention when I grabbed it. If starting seed works out for me this year, I'll consider finding the raw materials myself next year. Like seed, if I buy in bulk I should get years worth of mix for a fraction of the "retail" price.

Notes:
1) Looks like 8 quarts of potting mix will be enough for 12 4-pack flats.

2) Planted 2 4-packs of Long Keepers, Big Boy, and Cherry tomatoes, with 2 seeds per cell. Will need to thin them later.

Plenty of seed kept for Long Keepers & Cherry for next year. Used all the Big Boys (ok, had 3 seeds left over, I'm not keeping them).

3) Squash isn't recommended for four packs, doesn't like roots disturbed. So they're not candidates. No sense in starting beans early.

4) Cucumbers only need to be started 2-3 weeks before planting, so too early to start right now. I'm about 6 weeks from transplant season.

Rough Costs:
Big Boy seeds: $1.10
Four Pack: $0.25
Potting Mix: $0.44
Total: $1.79 per four pack

Cherry Tomatoes are a lot cheaper, around $1.04 per four pack

Now to remember to check prices on four packs later this year for comparison!

We're walking, we're walking

Walk #1 @ Audobon:
1.3 Miles, 1 hour overall. Moving avg = 2.5mph, did basically last 1/3rd mile @ just under 4mph. Little slower going here between one steep grade, plus a lot of un-even walking.

Walk #2 @ Pachaug: 0.27miles @ 4mph moving, all moving.

Cellulosic Ethanol and Wood...

I was reading this article about the "Q" bacteria discovered by UMass at the Quabbin with the potential to be an efficient convert of cellulose to ethanol.

Let's do some quick math.

-- Estimates are we can get 94 gallons (eventually) of ethanol from each ton of cellulose.
-- Cord of hardwood is roughly 1 ton per cord.
-- Connecticut forests generally have a sustainable yield of 1/2 cord per year
-- There's 1.8 Million acres in Connecticut
-- About 60% of Connecticut State Forests are loggable. The rest are environmentally sensitive, culturally sensitive, or being purposely managed "naturally." I think we can apply that percentage to the state as a whole.
-- So that's 1.08 Million acres yielding 1/2 cord per year which would make 25 Million gallons of Ethanol in a year.
-- In 2007 Connecticut used 37,906 thousand barrels of gasoline, that's 1,592,052,000 gallons of gasoline (that's 530 gallons per person, about 10 per week, so I believe it).
-- Ignoring ethanol's lower energy content (long term that could be compensated for by more efficient, higher compression engines), Connecticut grows enough wood to offset 1.5% of it's gasoline usage.

I have no doubt cellulosic ethanol can be part of the solution, but obviously it ain't the end of the world. If we assume similiar figures for Maine (in reality, they'd probably harvest a higher percentage, but growing a little bit fewer tons per acre) they'd be around 240 Million gallons of ethanol a year, or roughly enough to displace 1/3rd of their state's use of a gasoline.

And we haven't talked about diesel.

Switchgrass can produce about 5 tons per acre, but at what cost in annual fertilizers and pesticides I don't know. It shouldn't need fertilizer and pesticide like corn, but I doubt it can go without any perpetually.

We're walking, we're walking

Went up to the pitch pine knoll in the Audobon property. Meant to take some photos...forgot to put a memory card in my camera. Pace a bit slow & stopping, mainly looking at the fire results from last year's controlled burn, plus playing with the GPS.

At any rate, 1 mile @ 2.5mph moving average.

Oh, think I figured out, to calculate an area, I need to "save a track" around it.

More GPS play

Ok, starting to figure this GPS thingy out.

Streeter Trail, Douglas State Forest
2527' 0:08:15 -- so that's 4mph.

Seed Notes

Stocking up on my seeds for the year. And in some cases, the next few years!

Agway:
Beans, bush, green, Long Tendergreen, 4 oz, $2.79
Beans, bush, yellow, Golden Butterwax, 4oz, $2.79
Zucchini, Black Beauty, 4oz, $4.69
Cucumber, Straight 8, 4oz $4.85
Cucumber, Marketmore 76, 4oz $5.75

Putnam Farmer's Co-op:
Squash, Butternut, Waltham 2.5g $1.89
Squash, Summer, Goldbar Hybrid 3g $2.69 x 2 = $5.38
Potting Soil $4.95 + $0.30 tax

Today's purchases: $33.82
YTD Garden: $46.09


Price Comparisons:

Agway carries some of their seeds in larger packages -- 1/4# and 1#. Putnam Farmer's Co-op has a smaller selection of seeds but sells them in bulk (weigh your own), and looking at the prices that's an even better deal then the Agway packages. But Putnam didn't have the varieties of Zukes & Cukes I was looking for.

The price differential is such it only takes being able to use the seeds for 2 or 3 seasons to save money by buying in bulk over little packets.

Green or Yellow bush beans:
$1.49 for 3/4oz packet = $31.78/pound
$2.79 for 4oz (what I bought) = $11.16/pound
$2.50 for 1/2# bulk = $5.00/pound ...guess I should've price checked first, 1/2# probably would last me a decade :)
$4.25 for 1# bulk = $4.25/pound

Zukes, Black Beauty:
$1.29 for 5g (1/6th oz) = $123.84/pound
$4.69 for 1/4# = $18.76/pound

Cukes, Straight 8:
$1.29 for 3g = $185.76/pound,
$4.85 for 1/4# = $19.40/pound

Cukes, Marketmore 76:
$2.99 for 1/4 oz = $191.36/pound
$5.75 for 1/4# = $23/pound

Playing with the GPS

GPS I just got from Pat for Christmas :)

Railroad tracks from Route 169 to Needle's Eye Road. 1.2 miles. 11:50 going out (walking time); 9:30? coming back. Overall 3.0mph in motion, 1.6mph including breaks.

Have to play with how to "save" a trip log. Or just use a pen to write it down.

Something to remember if I ever sell firewood

Toy with the idea sometimes of selling 1/4 cord loads, what my pickup can comfortably handle, for a premium for people looking for social fires for fireplaces and such sometimes. I reckon I could get $100-125 a load stacked at the customer's residence which is a nice premium.

Saw this post on arboristsite.com today:

Your 3 biggest days where your really gonna move wood (at least my experience is the day before thanksgiving, christmas and newyears. I dont know how these holidays sneak up on people but no joke last year for each day I got probably literally 50 calls for firewood, the day before, because people wanted 1 face cord, cause the family was coming over, and they needed a fire for the holiday.

Good to remember for when to post the Craigslist ads :)

Garden 2009 has begun

Peas, onions, garlic went in yesterday!

Have more peas, debating what I should do to plant the rest. Maybe some fence posts to hold up trellising?

I also put some Mountain Laurel into a nursery bed. We'll see how that works out...if the roots take, I can transplant them to their permanent location next year with minimal trauma to the roots.

Also bought some potatoes.

From Putnam Farmer's Co-op:
1/2# Yellow Onions $1.50
1/2# Red Onions $1.65
1/2# White Onions $1.65
3 Garlic bulbs $2.97 (goodness, must've been 18 cloves to a bulb!)

From Plainfield Agway:
2# Yukon Gold Potatoes $1.50
2# Red Pontiac Potatoes $1.50 (I think they were Pontiacs...)
2# Kennebec Potatoes $1.50 (I think they were Kennebecs...)

Peas I bought last year.

Expenses YTD: $12.27

How...

Can't figure out how I want to start organizing my information on brush fires.

A blog? Was playing with www.d90.us/wooden_nutmeg as a WordPress blog.

That seems to be going well.

Cover them Over

Traditionally read at Memorial Day ceremonies in New England:

Cover the thousands who sleep far away--
Sleep where their friends can not find them to-day;
They who in mountain, and hillside and dell
Rest where they wearied, and lie where they fell.
Softly the grass-blade creeps round their repose;
Sweetly above them the wild flow'ret blows;
Zephyrs of freedom fly gently o'erhead,
Whispering names for the patriot dead.
Cover the faces that motionless lie,
Shut from the blue of the glorious sky;
Faces once lighted with smiles of the gay--
Faces now marred with the frown of decay.
Eyes that beamed friendship and love to your own;
Lips that sweet thoughts of affection made known;
Brows you have soothed in the day of distress;
Cheeks you have flushed by the tender caress.
Faces that brightened at War's stirring cry;
Faces that streamed when they bade you good-by. Faces that glowed in the battle's red flame, Paling for naught, till the Death Angel came. Cover them over--yes, cover them over-- Parent, and husband, and brother, and lover:
Kiss in your hearts these dead heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers!
-- Will Carlton

How hopped up on cough syrup am I?

I've been miserable, on and off, for the last 10 days.

First a 24 hour plus a little bit flu on Wednesday, then a mild fever Saturday night even though I deliberately took that day easy. Cut a very little amount of firewood on Sunday just desperate for fresh air...and I've had a cold all this week...which has now turned into full blown laryngitis.

I have a habit of re-using the 32oz juice bottles when I buy them a water jug for a week or so (rinsing / washing of course). So today I grab the empty from my desk, fill it half with water, go to the fridge, top it off with orange juice.

At which point I find myself thinking, "Huh, they mislabeled this. It's clearly orange juice, but the container says it's Ruby Red Grapefruit." It honestly took me a minute to figure it out.

To think I went for a long drive today and bought a copy of Audobon's Field Guide to Trees. And I'm not even on the good stuff for cough syrup, just plain old non-drowsy formula.

Nightsoil in China

I'm not even sure how or why I stumbled upon this book in Google:

The use of 'nightsoil' or human manure immediately springs to Western minds when Chinese agriculture is mentioned, and although it may occasion considerable repugnance to us, to the Chinese it was an obvious and simple way to return fertility to the soil, the validity of which emerges clearly in modern chemical analyses.

(It goes on to note that this practice has probably aided greatly in maintaining fertility in China; compare this particularly to long-term declines in other bread bowls like the fertile crescent and the Mediterranean)

Newspapers circling the drain Part II

Soon after I started working at the T&G I knew enough about the revenue side to seriously question what was being paid for newspapers.

Assuming you're looking for a 10% return on investment on capital, and need to achieve that from ongoing operations, then most I could see a newspaper being worth was around $1,000 per unit of circulation. Unless you're running a Ponzi scheme, that's the only way you truly make money in the long term -- from the underlying business earnings.

Hearst bought the Chronicle after the Times bought the T&G from the Chronicle.
Hearst paid $1,375 per unit circulation for the Chronicle.Times paid $2,757 per unit circulation for the T&G.In 1993 the Times paid $1,666 per unit circulation for the Globe (averaging daily and Sunday circulation).

If you took the difference between $1,000/circulation I figure was a fair value and what was paid for these papers and bought investment grade securities earning 4% instead, today Hearst would have $250 Million extra in the bank and Times would have $1 Billion extra.

With the Chronicle losing $50-70M in 2009, that $250M combined with reasonable business cost cutting would by them 4, 5, 6 years to weather this economic storm.

The Times currently has $1.1 Billion in debt -- including $250 Million in a loan from a Mexican businessman at an unbelievable 14% interest rate! Had they not overpaid for the Globe and T&G, they could be nearly debt free today. Had they not built an new headquarters building...they too would have several hundred million in cash and investments on hand.

These bad decisions have now hamstrung the old media companies.

Given changes in the business since then (collapse in advertising) and substantial risk, off the top of my head I wouldn't value a newspaper at more then $400/unit circulation today. That price gives you some ability to see your investment appreciate -- if things turn around with the economy and the industry, you might see $500-600 values be reasonable in the next 5 years or so.

As a sanity check, I just googled this which has Barclay's valuing the Globe at $192M and the T&G at $18M. That gives the Globe a value of $458 per unit circulation and the T&G a value of $180 per unit circulation.

For the T&G, I suspect the analyst didn't credit the T&G's modern printing plant in Millbury to the T&G -- figuring it's worth at least $12M and shifting that value from the Globe to T&G...both papers end up right around $400 per unit circulation. So I think I still have a good handle of newspaper values, MBA or no MBA. :)

Can you make money in newspapers today?

ABSOLUTELY.

First step though is to run them through bankruptcy. They're carrying debts that are not supportable by their underlying value, and those have to go. Even in cases where just enough cash can be squeezed to make loan payments, a realistic valuation of assets is likely to trigger convenents to call the loans. Executives made bad decisions, investors made bad decisions...bankruptcy is the way those mistakes are corrected.

Newspapers circling the drain...

I worked at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette for a bit more then five years. The T&G was grouped together with the Boston Globe as the New England Media Group by their parent organization, the New York Times.

It was my favorite job ever and I doubt I'll ever have one that combines the interesting challenges with the terrific co-workers I had. Newspapers have a surprisingly complex workflow where many different, discrete pieces are brought together to produce the final product. From an Information Systems perspective, it's a really mentally stimulating industry.

Today clearly it's an industry circling the drain. While the industry would've been challenged by the economy and techonological changes, the true yoke around it's neck is the debt levels taken on over the last 20 years -- an example of the widespread use of capital in the U.S. in unproductive ways. Even when parent companies spent cash to buy other newspapers they did so at the cost of not making other, wiser investments. Money being spent to spend money, rather then careful and considered investments.

Does make you wonder how much greater our productivity gains from Information Systems over the last 25 years would've been had we not had so much poor and unproductive money shuffling going on.

Today TIME came out with an article on papers likely to go under soon, they figured 8 out of the following 10:

1. The Philadelphia Daily News.
2. The Minneapolis Star Tribune
3. The Miami Herald
4. The Detroit News
5. The Boston Globe
6. The San Francisco Chronicle
7. The Chicago Sun-Times
8. The New York Daily News
9. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
10. The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Some I don't believe will disappear -- the Boston Globe needs a serious Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization to say the least, but it's a media market that needs someone to serve it.

My experience with the San Francisco Chronicle is only secondary -- they sold the T&G to the New York Times about a year before I joined the T&G. What I saw coming into the T&G is the past owners had been too frugal -- milking the profits while not making reasonable investments to improve efficiency. Assuming the Chronicle was run with similiar tight reins the most reasonable assumption to explain their current predicament is the debt load from Hearst's take over of them -- $660 Milllion for a paper with a circulation of 480,000.

To be continued...

Hmmm, what should I post about?

How about look how quickly the snow is melting!

It pretty much disappeared overnight...


And by the afternoon load of wood, even the puddles had mostly dried up!


It was 60º today and absolutely gorgeous. See a post that wasn't about wood :)

Oh, but I do want to mention racks:

Saw these online today, looks like a fantastic design -- although I'd like a pitch to the roofs personally:

More wood!

This should be the first load for the 2009/2010 season.
Hopefully get ahead of the curve this spring so I have nicely seasoned wood all season. I have another load this size to bring in tomorrow morning then I'll split it up to useable size and stack on pallets this week.

March Woodcutting

A special post just for Rebecca since she gets a chuckle out of my wood.



Cutting up a couple swamp maples (probably Silver Maple or a Red Maple / Silver Maple hybrid) near my house. Trying to get them done before the thaw sets in in earnest this weekend! That's a solid 1/4 cord in the bed. Might be the last I need to split this year, depending how mild March and early April is I may have enough wood to make it through the rest of the year now.

Makes clean up of the rest of the trees still on the ground pretty quick since I can just haul the whole logs over to the woodpile and leave them there to split later.

Notice...there's snow on the ground again. Had 9" on Monday, mostly between midnight and dawn.

February Woodcutting

Just in the nick of time to avoid a post-less month!

Cut about 3/8ths of a cord of wood up on the Prince Hill Road side of my property -- most cleaning up oddly shaped trees to encourage the better shapes ones.

One small ash, and a few smaller red oaks (I believe -- I really need to learn better how to identify trees, I'm really embarrased since I thought I knew them better).

Biggest red oak was maybe 12" diameter breast height, if I didn't run out of daylight I would've easily made it to half a cord of wood.

Here's my truck with the first load, about 1/4 cord, in it.

January day cutting firewood

For reasons of health & time, I didn't have everything split and waiting for winter.
I do have enough wood, but a lot is still in logs (old enough to not be green) that need to be bucked and split.

So I didn't have much choice if I wanted heat this upcoming week without hitting my "special reserve" of rapidly dwindling split stuff then to go out with the saw and tools and make some firewood.

Even if it was 12º. Maybe 13º. But sunny and warming quickly towards 20º

1) Hmmm, have I ever switched the air intake thingy on the Stihl to cold weather mode? I remember 11 years ago hauling trees across the pond, so maybe then.

2) Whats worse then fogging on safety/sun glasses? Your sweat freezing the instant a drop hits them.

3) The bug I found was NOT an Asian Long Horn beetle, to my great relief. It was black & white and 1-1/4 long, but was an Eastern Eyed Clicking Beetle. Visions of my property being turned into pasture courtesy of USDA were dancing in my head till I determined that.

4) Most of the sycamore was not bad to split, but the bottom 5' or so has some of the nastiest, stringiest heart wood I have ever encountered.

5) Whats worse the sweat freezing to your glasses? After you eat lunch, you come back out and the sun goes behind the clouds.

And the moisture on your gloves start to form an ice layer on your fiberglass handled tools. The Fiskars wasn't bad at all, but the maul and sledge...that took a lot of extra concentration. And the steel wedges were like holding onto a greased pig.

6) I didn't have the other yellow link chain hanging where I thought it was when I went to bring all my chains to the guy who sharpens them, town highway crewman who works the dump on Saturdays. Oh well, well get the other yellow and the green sharpened.

And there was nothing good to scavenge from the dump, either.

7) Sycamores burning nice but pretty darn fast. It's bone dry, at least what I'm burning right now.

IF I can get a couple hour window between snow storms 1 and 2 tomorrow, I'll have to break out my new chain and buck a couple more 24" logs off my nice, long burning ash to mix in with this stuff during the week.

I suspect the big difference is the ash was on the ground, and is still pretty moist -- any moister I'd call it green.

Overall, it was a nice day -- I'm starting to get into my wood cutting shape. I just want to be able to get a couple weeks ahead so I can have a great chainsaw massacre and start felling trees for next year's supply!

December 2008 Ice Storm

On December 11th a major storm ice storm struck New England. The main area of damage was around northern Worcester County, MA, the Berkshires, and southern New Hampshire, with areas of Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine also impacted.

The storm was associated with significant rainfall -- in Windham County, CT from 12/10 through 12/12 from 3-1/2 to 5" of rain was recorded! Overnight Thursday into Friday morning 1/2 to 3/4" of ice setup in the worst hit areas.

1.25 Million customers lost power in what I believe is was the most catastrophic damage ever to the New England power grid and only rivaled by the 1965 Northeast Blackout for customer outages. There was still significant areas without power 10 days later, and full restoration took some three weeks for isolated customers.

WTAG on Asnebumskit Hill in Paxton lost their power and landline phones -- it was Tuesday I believe before they had full phone service restore. From Friday through the following Friday they suspended their normal programming and instead acted as an information clearinghouse. Without phones, they depended on a single cell phone over the weekend while requesting questions and answers be sent in by text messaging, which they'd then read over the air. A few public officials were put on the radio by holding the cell phone to the radio microphone, hardly a hi fidelity option.






Top damage:




Pine tree in the center lost it's top -- which is now impaled into the ground 75' away (to the right)


Icing on a white pine. This was a nor'easter -- north and east facing trees took the brunt since the rain was being driven by the wind from that direction, and there where a few more protected spots I passed that you'd see one side of valley with heavy icing, and the other looked like any other winter day.


Route 31...still spots where they had just made the road passable but hadn't cleared it yet.