10 gallons of gas

[John(videodoc)]

Just got the mowing done. For the first time, i tracked the amount of gas needed to to do the complete area that i mow. I mow my property and my aunts place (recent widow-next door). It took every bit of 10 gallons of gas.

There is a large area (about 15%) that i will let go to hay next year, but have (want) to mow it this year as i just finished getting it cleared, leveled and seeded last fall, and dont want any thorn trees growing up.

As the guy who does the hay, only cuts twice per year, July 1st and around October 1st.

Maybe i should get my cycle mower mounted and cut my own. And have Donny come on by and bale it for me I should probably rethink the size of my yard, or start playing the lottery at current gas prices.

I'd cut back a lot on what i mow, but those darn thorn trees grow so fast and so big. And they were/are a pain to clear out. Maybe a cow?

Oh well, just venting i guess about gas prices, 3.02 is what i paid friday, but ofcourse exxon made 8.2 billion in the first quarter of this year.

[Don McCombs]

John,

Cutting twice a year should be adequate to keep any woody plants from getting established. What are your "thorn trees"? Black locust?

[John(videodoc)]

FIL calls them a locust tree. The big ones i have cut down, the wood was yeller? The thorns a good 3-4 inches, take out a rear tractor tire without even blinking an eye.
Speaking from experience

[Jack fowler]

Videodoc wrote:

FIL calls them a locust tree. The big ones i have cut down, the wood was yeller? The thorns a good 3-4 inches, take out a rear tractor tire without even blinking an eye.
Speaking from experience

I think that is what they call “Osage orange” trees. They have the green apple that grows on them, and thorns were the leaf attaches to the twig.

The name of the tree comes from the Osage tribe, which lived near the home range of the tree, and the aroma of the fruit after it is ripe. (Find one of the fruit that has been sitting in the sun on a balmy Indian Summer day and notice the pleasant, orange-peel smell of the skin.) Not all of the trees will have fruit because Osage Orange are either male or female, and only the females will bear fruit.

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

Exxon is in business to make money, not lose it. They are not the villians here, although the politicians would like you to think so....it's called finger pointing.

At any rate.... GET SOME GOATS!!!!!!!!!!


They require so little attention and upkeep it's silly. They are as smart as dogs (well, some of them are).....and, if you're interested in a little extra work, they give milk.

Sheep are a similar experience, and certain breeds are very valuable as lambs at auction. Much more valuable than the hay. If you're not interested in the wool, just do a rough clipping from time to time, and throw the wool on the compost heap.

Both will eat the tender shoots of saplings of nearly any species of tree or shrub. They prefer to eat the nasty stuff and leave the grass, but will eat good grass if no weeds are present.

Huge lawn areas are an affront to my sensibilities. They are the most unproductive and environmentally irresponsible ways to leave land.

Another idea might be to buy an old corn planter, and a corn picker and get yourself a corn burner or two, and use it to heat your house.

[Dan England]

I agree with 400. Get a few goats, they will eat every tree leaf which they can reach. Thorns don't seem to bother them, they will work around the thorns to remove the leaves and will soon kill the bushes. On the other hand, you may not want goats if the prevaling winds blow across the goat pasture toward your home. Somewhat like having a hog pen located upwind from your house. Dan

[LiL' Red]

FIL calls them a locust tree. The big ones i have cut down, the wood was yeller? The thorns a good 3-4 inches, take out a rear tractor tire without even blinking an eye.
Speaking from experience

Sounds to me like Honey Locust. Long seed pods, look like giant brown peas? Those thorn wounds are also prone to infection.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

Thye are called locust trees in our area too. there are 2 kinds, one with thorns and one without. don't know if that was male and female, or 2 different species.

[Chris Todd]

Are Honey Locust.....OUCH

[ljw]

Black and honey locust trees have thorns only 1-2 inches long. For the people that are beekeepers, the early honey locust blooms produce honey that is very light and highly desireable. When I bought my place years ago the entire pasture had been allowed to grow up with brush and scrub trees. The ash, locust, and sycamore trees I considered keepers and allowed them to grow. The rest were cut or mowed down. I don't know why I left the sycamores. If I could drive over it I would bushhog it. Yes, I did get a loaded tire punctured with one of those sharp stumps. I don't recommend doing it that way. The trees are now fairly large, and when I ran cattle and horses the trees allowed them shade. It wasn't too difficult to mow around the trees after removing the low hanging branches. Yes, I've removed a few mufflers in my day.
What I find troublesome now is the honeysuckle and those crappy cedar trees that grow up overnight. And I have used Roundup around the fence rows to get the poison ivy.
I agree with Tom in that it's a supply and demand oil market. If I were a ExxonMobil shareholder (I'm not), I don't know if I would want my investment to decrease in value. Sounds cold, doesn't it? If people cut out the needless driving I feel that money could be saved and the oil companies would get the message. Although I only live 2-3 miles from town people laugh at me for saying "going into town" like it's a long distance. But when I go to town I make a list and buy what I need for the forseeable future. I have neighbors that drive to McDonalds most mornings for carryout breakfast. Don't get me wrong, I think that's OK if that's what you want. But if you want to save money and gas, fix breakfast at home. It actually tastes better than McD's. Just make your life I little more efficient. It's amazing how much less a person casn live very well on when they put their mind to it.
Larry

[jostev]

I agree with Tom and Dan, get any type of goat, we have pygmy goats and they will eat ANYTHING, including plastic etc.... not good for them but we don't see them eat it, just scraps or sheep, they too will eat thorns and brush, not as much though.

WE also have those thorn trees, i got one in my car tire and now it leaks oh well

I think that mowing 2-3 times a year should stop the trees, our neighbors filed hasn't been mowed in 5+years untill i started a few years back, and now it's starting to turn into a "field" again...

good luck

Johnny

[Jack fowler]

I think Tom and Larry are correct on supply and demand. I think Larry is correct on how to cut out the needless driving.

Now I’m probably going to write something, to get in trouble for. If all the dimwit (mostly female) people would stop driving their four wheel drive SUV’s, 80 mph while talking on their cell phone/putting their make up on and eating their breakfast on the way to work or wherever they’re going, we probably would save 10,000 barrels a day. I know I’m sounding a little incongruous, but I see this everyday and most of the people are going to the same place of employment.

When I was visiting other countries a few months ago, people would make all decisions based on economics not "on I want it now or else". Basically the people of (politics out) other countries think we are good people and the USA wants to help others in need. They also say we have it good and waste a lot of the world’s resources unnecessarily.

I personally think why the US has it good because we fought for the good and prevailed. Now it’s time to start acting like the people of Europe on how to conserve.

For example; when in France, if you had to dry your clothes in a clothes dryer, the dryer collected the moisture in a retainer and you could use it for other things such as watering the garden. I was residing at a Doctors home the family had a large garden not only in their yard, but also behind his office for the nurses and office help. I traveled in GM and Ford made cars that got 56 mph. And yes they fit six adults very well. The GM car was an Opel and the Ford was a Taurus style car. Both were Diesel power with manual transmissions. If you went long distance the bus or train was the transportation system and yes you just didn’t jump in the car and go to the hamburger place. A lot of people walked, rode a bicycle, motor bike or ECT. Most automobiles resemble over size go-carts.

When I was residing with the Doctor’s family we visited restaurants in the evenings via public transportation.

[Rudi]

I was trying to stay out of this one.. but it is getting too interesting.

I also agree with Tom on a lot of what he was saying. Em and I had goats for a few years and we milked em everyday.. morning and evening. Provided well for my girls who are lactose intolerant. This was when we had chickens, rabbits, meat kings, turkeys and ducks along with other varietites of fowl.. the good old days when I had the health to do the work needed.

We also were considering sheep... more for their wool. Our neighbour whose hubby owned a small kiln and provided top filght furniture stock, has a woolery and she spins all of her own wool from her sheep and is always looking for more.

I would suggest if the idea of sheep interest you (they are pretty low maintenance for livestock) that you check out if there are spinners in the area who would be interested in clean, local fresh wool. Find out what variety is in demand and choose that variety to have. That way you actually have a market for the wool which can be used to help PAY for the critters.

Em and I also have to budget our Trips to Town.. although the 10-20 km trip some days is repeated a multitude of times (with 3 girls in university and working -- it gets to be multiples), we still try to lump as much as we can in each trip thereby reducing our total fuel bill. It is difficult, but we have always tracked it this way, and will always.

We use the car pool idea even in the family and try to compile 2 or more families ie-- mother and father in law etc., when going to family outings ets. Car-pooling to school and work would be a good system.

We also need to increase our use of public transit, although here it is next to non-existent... unless you live right downtown.... being in the country has it's problems but they are way less than the positives.

I also see wayyyy too many tractor trailers on the roads and highways. Trains should be more frequently used and in my mind... long haul should be more economically utilized for perishables only and most of those other commodity containers moved onto trains.

Every since 1983 when we went to Europe and became accutely aware of what gas cost the local German or French or Italian populations in their respective lands, brought home the amount of waste we here in NA produce and the value of the 3 R's -- Reduce, Re-use and Re-cycle. It even has some aspects in fuel usage...

Back then we were getting 1.40DM for $1.00 Cdn or about 1.47DM for $1.00US. Gas on the local economy was anywhere from 1 to 2DM per litre.... made us happy that we had Gas Stamps to buy gas on the local economy. Mind you we were rationed on how much fuel we could buy... but we still could buy it at NA prices.

Today, gas in Europe is what... 6.97Euro in England, 7 or 8 Euro on the continent -- which even though our gas here is expensive, is still relatively cheap compared to European prices.

The last fill up cost me a lot -- over $80.00 Cdn or 1.199/litre which translates to $78.00US to fill up my Grand Caravan... ouch..

and we might be able to expect gas to come down a bit to maybe $1.139/litre over the summer.. but most likely it will climb higher again.

It is the international oil companies who are making such huge profits for their shareholders as is right -- make the most profit according to the market... but the real problem is the futures traders around the world and the speculators who are getting rich off of promoting fear about oil availability.

Every time there is a large storm in the Gulf of Mexico -- prices go up... why? the Gulf doesn't provide a whole lot of oil in comparision with other offshore fields around the world or land based wells either.. Every time there is an attack against an Iraqi line -- prices spike -- why??? to drive the price higher so the speculators can get rich...

I haven't a clue as to the solution... but there must be one...

As mentioned above.. if we modify our usage and reduce the amount of fuel we burn, buy better vehicles that get better mileage and produce less emissions we may be able to force the oil giants and the speculators to reduce the cost of raw oil to reasonable levels...

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

Rudi has many valid points...

A little more than 40% of the oil we use here in the US comes from Canada.
Another 25% comes from domestic sources. Now, unless I'm totally daft, that amounts to 65%.....

Canada is (last time I looked) a sympathetic, friendly, democratic, nation, who is not led by Islamic fundementalists bent on destroying the west (well, yes, there's always EZ, but he doesn't count.....LOL ) One would assume, then, that there is no political element driving any part of Canada's share of our oil supply.

With fully 65% of our oil supply solid as anything is in this world, how can oil prices rise so much, so quickly??

Rudi supplied the answer....futures markets. The panic over a possible war with Iran (who by the way supplies us with less than 5% of our oil) sends the world oil market into a panic.

Iran's president makes a statement that "Oil is selling for less than its real value" and suddenly, the world's economists agree!!" Did they agree when he said Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth?? Of course not, because there was no money to be made in that prospect. But oil..now there's something they can sink their teeth into....

If Saddam Hussein would make a statement at his trial saying that gas in America should sell for at least $5 a gallon, then I guarantee you, at least for a while, it WOULD!!!

The only thing we should feel bad about, aside from it costing more at the pump, is that we didn't buy into Energy Mutual funds about 3 years ago, with their (now) up to 20% yields, or, as Larry said, bought into Exxon stock back when the Valdez spilled, because it's been spiraling upwards ever since.

The rest of the world looks at the US now as we look at a drug addict, and they even call us oil-addicted. They have half-hearted sympathy, but generally figure its our own fault. Well, I guess this is true. We live sometimes hours away from our workplace. We never developed good public transportation outside of our major cities. We abandoned our freight train system in favour of trucking and private parcel carriers, because we always need everything yesterday.

My point is, all of this is irrelevant. There is no going back. We need a solution that we can pump into our tanks NOW, with as little conversion to our vehicles as possible. At $2 a gallon, Ethanol is no bargain. At $3.50, its an entirely different matter. Sugar to Ethanol seems the most painless path to me at this time.

The feedstocks could be:
Corn syrup sap
Sorghum
sugar cane
maple sap
jerusalem artichoke
fruit waste
sugar beets

and, undoubtedly a few others I'm forgetting completely.

There isn't any area of the country that cannot produce sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol distillation.

And remember, we don't need to replace our entire oil supply....just the unstable 35%, and we're secure again.

And, despite what some people will say, ethanol can be produced on the small family farm. As the WTO takes away farming subsidies, this can be what saves American agriculture.

At that, I'll stumble off my soapbox, and climb back under my rock!!

--Tom

[beaconlight]

You guys are making me feel bad. I just bought 100 shares of Canadian Oil Sands. They own a piece of a company that mines the sands and extracts oil. They run 3 different mines and use 3 different processes. The Synthetic oil they recover runs from about $34 to $40 per barrel to produce according to the location and the process each uses. This is not an inexpensive way to get oil. If Canada is our salvation for oil it will Cost and Cost big time just to make it happen. On top of the $ I mention you have to pump it from Northern Alberta to a Refinery and then move the finished product which costs more bucks. I generally figure 88 cents Canadian to 1 American Dollar but it looks as if that is changing too to nearly 90 cents and headed to parity. I remember in 1955 it was $1.27 American to $1.00 Canadian. Times change and we have to change with them or get plowed under. Etnenol is an idea that some studies show to be an energy gainer and others show to be an energy loser. I guess it is like oil sands depends on how you process the feed stock, and what you use for feed stock. I rmember Cowboy mentioning his family making their own Bio Diesel and how corn gave only half the percentage per ton as Rape seed (Canola oil).
I don't have the Answers other than the more it weighs and the less aerodynamic it is, the more fuel per mile. My other astounding conclussion is the fewer miles the less fuel. As you can tell from my conclussions I am not a brain surgeon yet I can't help think that math has not changed that much since I went to high school in the 1940's. 1+1 = 2 and 1-1=0. Algebra lets you do all kinds of crazy things a car won't 0 gallons - 1 gallon = -1 gallon but a car or cub won't run on that.

Bill