Have generator, will travel

This weekend, I finally got around to project that has been on my list for a while.  I moved the giant Kohler propane generator that was originally by the house. It's now over at the shop. We haven't used the Kohler since the early winter after we purchased a much smaller (2000w vs 12000w) Honda inverter generator.  The Honda is perfect for supplementing our solar energy in the off season.  The Kohler was just too big for us to run efficiently.  Even with full charge on the batteries and some house load, we were only using about 15% of the generator's capacity and still burning lots of propane (1-2 gals/hr).  With the Honda, we can set our charger to load the generator at about 75% of it's capacity  (regardless of house loads) and it still sips fuel (~0.25gals/hr).  We run the Honda a little longer, but it's works out well in our favor. As an added bonus, the Honda is a great complement to the Scamp -- it'll even run the AC.

So the Kohler will get re-purposed as a shop generator for running larger 240v power tools like my table saw and other large gems that I might come across on Craig's list.  I've been contemplating going this route for some time, but was reluctant due to the lack of propane over at the shop.  A quick call to our propane company, Montana Propane, cured my reluctance.  They offered to replace our existing 1000-gallon rental tank with two 500-gallon tanks at only the cost of parts for hooking up the second tank.  The even cut us a deal on the rental price for 2 tanks so they come out to the same price as a single larger tank. Cass and I have been thinking the 1000-gallon tank was too large and obnoxious for our needs for a while anyway, so everyone's happy!

Wind River Backpacking Trip 2013

Phenomenal [fi-nom-uh-nl] adjective.
1. Highly extraordinary or prodigious, exceptional.
2. Four days and 36 miles in the Wind River Range.

Seriously, wow. This was (one of) the best backpacking trips we've ever been on. Sheer granite peaks, strings of crystal clear lakes, and only three swats at mosquitoes. What more can you ask for in backpacking? Um, how about peaks over 13,000 feet? Yep, got em. Mystical mountains? Yes, Mordor is actually located here. Golden fish? Yes, in trout variety.

Bill and I loaded up Stewie and met up with our group of die-hards (my brother Josh, sister Niesh, and brother-in-law Leighton) in Idaho Falls. It was a quick trip east along the Hoback River and then on to Pinedale, Wyoming. Accessing the trail head required a one hour drive along an irritatingly persistent, teeth-jarring dirt road; but with every good thing comes a price. (Would not recommend low-clearance sedans making the venture.)

Here is the map of area we traversed, color coded by day. Because this blogging program is such a pain in the butt to work with photos, they are all (aside from the map) attached at the bottom, in semi-chronological order.

Day One: Feeling it Out, 8.7 miles

From Big Sandy Trailhead (9100') we had a late start on the trail at 3PM, but we easily covered our mileage up Freemont Trail, through Fish Creek Park, and past Dad's and Marm's Lakes (this didn't strike me as funny until I just listed them side by side and busted up). Our first camp was just below 10000' in a boulder field.  Bill and I broke a cardinal backpacking rule by packing canned food,  but this is our favorite meal in the wilderness and we didn't have time to dehydrate:

Extra Awesome Burritos: 1 small can corn, 1 can Embasa salsa, 1 can black beans, 1 pack of precooked rice, 1 large can chicken, lots of cheese. Mix, heat, and eat in tortillas. We doubled the batch and had plenty for five people. And, viola, the packs were 5 lbs lighter!

Day Two: Climbing Up, 8.2 miles

A chilly morning greeted us as we navigated our first pass, Washakie, at 11611', which was a rigorous climb up into what felt to be our grand entry into the Wind mountains. The wind whipped up and we dropped off the other side of the pass to rest by the lake below and snack on some gorp and salami, awestruck at the granite cliffs surrounding us.

The rest of the day included a river crossing and a gradual ascent up to Valentine Lake, 10400'. We found some tiny but tasty huckleberries along the way.

Hanging the bear bag proved to be challenging that night, and Leighton suffered a minor mishap when our supporting branch broke off as we tried to hoist the heavy bag up (via pulling the rope and pushing up on the bag from underneath it). The branch snapped, and L got a good sideswipe to the face from the heavy, falling bag. Luckily, no serious harm done.

Day Three: Striding it Out, 11.2 miles and 2 passes

After due consideration we decided we'd rise early enough to let the moonlight guide some of our hike. Up at 4 AM, no one complained much as we rubbed the sleep out of our eyes, swung our packs on, and headed up the second pass, onto Lizard Head Trail. The climb was more gradual than anticipated, and probably less intimidating in the gray dawn hours. As we crested the top, approaching but not quite reaching 12000', we were greeted with a golden sunrise. The ridge hike along the Lizard Head was a bit hilly, with jaw-dropping views of the Continental Divide to the west. The well-delineated trail ultimately dissipated and we resorted to following rock cairns for a few miles. Coming off Lizard Head we spotted our one and only black bear who dashed off several hundred feet below us. It was a fast and steep decent from the ridge into Lizard Head Meadows, back to 10000', where we hunkered down for an afternoon nap.

The Lizard Head Meadows are a gorgeous, lush setting with the meandering Popo River and the Cirque of the Towers beckoning in the background. There was plenty of good fishing to be had, and I added a few trout to our lunch. (Our Grandpa Jack still talks about flying over the Winds in his Cesnna prop plane and looking down to see the lakes a golden hue due to the abundance of golden trout living there.) Once our bellies had been filled and our feet had rested up, we loaded up again, and headed toward the towers.

The Cirque has reportedly drawn trad climbers since the 1940s and has been described as an "alpine climber's Disneyland"...interpret at will. I, for one, was happy to be on the ground gazing up. I was also happy not to be carrying 50 extra pounds of rope and cams. But we passed plenty of people on the trail who were eagerly racing to the base of the peaks to start the ascent up them.

When we reached Lonely Lake, nestled just beneath the Towers, we decided to waylay making camp and head up Jackass Pass before we called it a day. It's a short, steep climb, but at the summit, we were smacked in the face with cold winds and horizontal rain, so we hunkered beneath a conveniently sloped boulder a little higher on the mountain. We waited out the rain for an hour or so, then plunged off the other side of Jackass and onto our next challenge: the boulder garden.

At the base of Jackass Pass sits Arrowhead Lake. This is basically a booby trap for those brave enough to try and reach the Cirque. To navigate the lake requires a scramble over the massive boulder field bordering the western edge of the water. Giant boulders, with no real clear-cut method of passage, make for an adrenaline-spiked scramble, which--for us-- included hoisting the dog up and over several spots. The rain had slicked the surface of the boulders, so that spiced up our passage as well. (Unbeknownst to us until much later, there is a hiker's trail to the east of the lake which is much less technical, and probably way less fun. The path we took is known as the climber's trail.)

Once safely beyond the boulder field, the rain and scrambling had slowed us up and dusk was setting in. We set up camp at the next flat spot and settled into a rousing game of Mormon Bridge, a card game which probably doesn't exist outside of Idaho and Utah, but which should, because it's obviously very fun. (I actually just googled this, and it's also known as "Oh Hell", "Screw Your Neighbor", and "Oh Jerusalem". There you go.)

Day Four: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow, 7.3 miles

More gorgeous lakes and peaks along the gradual decent from Big Sandy Lake to the parking lot. Blistered and bone-tired, we took the packs off and loaded up into the truck for the long, reminiscent drive home. 

Cass, Josh, Leighton, Taniesha,Bill, and Stew-dog

At the top of Washakie Pass.

Payson Peak. 

Approach to Lizard Head Trail.

The last part of the ridge, Lizard Head Trail.

Lizard Head Peak, with the Cirque of the Towers in the background.

Fish for lunch. 

The Cirque, with Pingora Peak on the right.

The Boulder Problem at Arrowhead Lake. 

Last glimpses of Big Sandy Trail.

Stewie, get in the back of the truck. 

Homemade Pesto is the Besto

It's getting exciting around here. The garden is starting to produce in full force, and it's time to put up some food! Tonight, we made pesto with our basil and garlic.

Take these....

Put them in this...

And you get this!

We used this recipe, courtesy of the Food Network. 

Ingredients:
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup pine nuts
3 TBS garlic, chopped
5 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 1/2 cups olive oil
1 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Put nuts and garlic in food processor, blend a bit. Add basil, salt, pepper. Slowly add oil as processor is running. Add cheese, process another minute. Eat, refrigerate or freeze. 

Mmmmm. I quadrupled the batch. 

Water water everywhere!

Woohoo, our new pump is in! That's right, we had to break down and buy a new well pump. Unfortunately the old pump started giving us problems earlier this summer. It started shutting itself down due to "overload" and was getting harder and harder to get started up. The pump was super efficient and designed for off-grid living, but unfortunately I don't think it was installed correctly in the first place. I did a few calculations when we started having problems and it turns out the installers undersized the wiring pretty significantly so the voltage at the pump was probably too low for the pump's entire life. It lasted 7 years this way; not too bad, but less than I would expect from a $3000 pump. The pump is likely salvageable, but it is produced by a German company and getting local service for it is nearly impossible. Also, the thought of spending $500 on appropriately sized wire and needing to dig a trench for the new cable was enough to make me rethink the options.

The choice of submersible pump for the off-grid home owner should not be taken lightly. There are a number of options out there:

• Low Voltage high capacity pumps like our previous Lorentz or the Grundfos SQFlex are designed to run directly off solar panels or batteries.  They tend to very efficient, but the upfront cost for the pump, heavy wiring, and optional solar panels can be significant.  The other downside is that they tend to be more complex, or at least rarer, and finding someone to service them can be a challenge.  Since we only got 7 years out of our last pump, I wasn't willing to go down this road again.  
• Incorporating a cistern is often times a good option for off-gridders.  Cisterns can be filled using solar slow pump or a large gas pump if the water source is close enough to the surface.  We may get a cistern for summertime watering some day, but since we don't already have one -- and we needed water now -- we didn't really consider this as a viable option.  
• The other main option is more traditional 120V and 240V pumps.  There are a variety of models to choose from, they are available locally, and they are relatively cheap.  But, they use more power.  Off-gridders need to consider not only how much the energy it takes to run the pump, but also the amount of energy it takes to start it up.  

In the end, we went with a 240V, 1/2hp 10gpm Franklin pump.  Our well recharge rate is ~10 gpm and our old pump (at 6-7 gpm) was getting worked  pretty hard when irrigating the wind break, so 10gpm pump is a pretty good match. The new pump uses about 1400watts.  I'm not sure what the startup watts are, but our 3500 watt (6000 watt surge) inverter doesn't seem to have any trouble getting it going.  To reduce number of startups, we got a second pressure tank.  We now have two 45 gallon pressure tanks, set at 25-45psi, so we get about 25 gallons of water per pump cycle.  The pump will cycle quite often in the summer when we're irrigating, but only a few times a day in the winter when we don't have much energy to spare.  

So...are we going to regret the decision not to buy a super-efficient solar pump?  I actually don't think we will. We are most likely to regret the decision in the winter since that's when we have the largest energy deficit.  But in the winter we don't really use a lot of water. On a big day, we might use 100 gallons of water/day. Here is how much energy it takes pump to move 100 gallons :

• Lorentz solar pump: 100 gallons @ 7gpm = 0.238 hours of pumping * 500 watts = 119 watt-hours
• Franklin 0.5hp pump: 100 gallons @ 10gpm = 0.167 hours of pumping * 1400 watts = 233 watt-hours

Based on these numbers, the Franklin will use about twice as much energy, but...120watt-hours is really pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. One $300 solar panel would more than make up the difference.  The difference in price between the pumps is on the order of thousands! There was also an additional energy expense associate with the Lorentz pump.  Since we needed a 48v version to match our water needs and our system runs on 24V, we needed to incorporate a 24-48v converter.  This converter consumed 3watts at all times -- ~75watt-hours per day, so the realized difference in energy is actually smaller than the example above. With the new pump, we do need to run a 240V auto tranformer 24 hours a day, but I've been doing that right along anyway for power tools in the shop.   Once we can move the big generator over to the shop, I will likely rewire the transformer to run only during the pump cycles.

To make a long story short...No, I don't think we'll regret the decision.   

Good Things Come in Threes

The dawn sky at Lucky Peak reservoir was a pale blue, and the softly-rippling water had a pink hue from the rising sun. Everything was serene and beautiful....and terrifying. We three stood, strapped into our wetsuits, with nowhere to hide. We were waist deep in the reservoir, bright blue swim caps sucking on our scalps. We were surrounded in a see of bobbing heads. Trying to look casual, I peed in my suit.

Doing a triathlon was something I always admired, but never thought I'd actually do. That all changed this summer, when Bill, myself, and our brother-in-law, Leighton, threw caution to the wind and signed up for the Les Bois off-road triathlon (sponsored by Xterra) in Boise, ID. Training was hit or miss, so we went at it like the weekend warrior die-hards that we are.

Where waldo 1, 2 and 3?

 So there we were, three amateurs treading water at the end of the dock, some of us peeing ourselves. The whistle blew, and we were off...like molasses, trying to get up momentum from a stand still under water. The bobble-head sea slowly began creeping forward, toward the first bright orange buoy. During that first chaotic heave, as legs were kicking, and goggles were fogging over, I reached a near-panic state when I felt as if I were being choked to death by my wetsuit. I was certain that I was going to drown, and I was 30 seconds into the event. I shook it off, continued gulping for air, and kept zig-zagging my way toward that buoy.

 So this is how the race went: Half a mile in the water. Ten miles on bike along a sometimes technical dirt road/single track. Three miles hoofing it to the base of the damn, up the face of the damn, and back down to the base (the face being affectionately referred to as "The Groin", with a 23% grade that pretty much seemed to never end). Below is Leighton's nicely executed demonstration:

"The Groin". It's actually much steeper than it looks.

Exhausted, but euphoric, we all three crossed the finish line as first-timer champs. It was a pretty good day.

The Poultry Plunge

Chickens have been a great source of both happiness and tragedy in our lives here. Today, we bring you two stories. One tragic. The other almost magical.

The Carnage

It all began innocently enough with an order to McMurray hatchery for 15 Red Rangers. This bird is an impressive, fast-growing specimen that supposedly yields 70% live to dress weight, and takes only about 12 weeks to get there. The chicks were shipped over night, and the day they came, we got a phone call from the post office at 5 AM to come pick up the package....

Just a couple of days old, under the heat lamp. 

Holding with tradition, we started the birds inside the house, in the pack-and-play--the perfect sized contraption to hold small birds. (When a blanket is draped over the top, it's nearly cat-proof.) Once the birds began feathering out, we moved them into the shop, in a boarded up area roughly 15 by 15 feet.

Our neighbor, Cianna, cuddling a chick.

We chose Red Rangers because they are a natural-looking bird that will "forage" and, well, act like chickens. The more traditional meat birds, Cornish Rock crosses, can reach sizes of 3-4 pounds (dressed out) in as little as 6 weeks. However, their lives consist of sitting by the feeder and stuffing their faces around the clock. They look like hybrid monsters. We just couldn't stomach it. The Reds were an easy win.

A few weeks old now...

Once the Reds grew a little, we started opening the shop door and letting them roam outside, under close supervision.  Until one day...when I got called urgently into work and completely spaced that the chickens were out. You know how it goes. When I got home, it hit me what I had done, and I ran to the shop. I was stopped dead in my tracks by the first lifeless, feathered body lying on the pathway to the shop. In total, we found only three bodies. The shop was completely empty. No scattered feathers. Nothing.

The next day while watering the tomato pots, we heard a terrible screeching noise, and found one bird tucked so tightly behind the pots that she couldn't move. We "rescued" the poor thing and set her back in the shop set up. She'll live the rest of her PTSD-ridden life (about 3 more weeks) in lonely solitude, no doubt haunted by the massacre, and will carry the secret gory details with her, to the grave-y and potatoes.

Seriously though, we were heart broken, and still are, each time we check on our lonely bird.

We are slowly building up courage to begin the reordering process and hope to get a second batch of Reds to try and raise this summer.

In other chicken news, we finally had a success! Read on.

Nontraditional Family

The broody hen is the bane of the egg collector. She can peck to draw blood if you disturb her on her nest, and she doesn't lay eggs, as she's putting all that energy into hatching them. About 2 months ago we got a broody. And then a second. Two Black Australorps decided to take up the nests. After the last devastation with a broody bird (see prior post), I was hesitant, but ultimately decided to try out these new potential mothers. The two sat side by side for weeks, with feathers fluffed, and clucking softly.

After roughly 21 days of waiting, Bill and I found two cheeping chicks in the hen house! (Sadly, only one survived.) BUT, the survivor has two very doting hens...both who will peck your eye out if you even think about getting near their baby. This lucky little chicken has two mommies.

Who's Your Pig Farmer?

We drove to Eureka (very northwest Montana) this weekend to get in a little camping in near Lake Kookanusa and to pick up our large black barrow hogs from Cranky Carl's Farm.

Cranky Carl is married to Gritty Gretchen; their nicknames are apt descriptors. Use your imagination. Carl made a dive into mud and manure to catch a runaway piglet, and our awe/admiration just grew from there. Our two blacks, roughly three months and probably 90 pounds each, are surprisingly mellow compared to the skittish pink Yorkshires we had last year. We also picked up another couple of younger piggies for our neighbor, and these guys are about a month old, and iddy biddy. Gretchen plucked them out from their pen, and with the help of her two young boys, put the piglets on their backs, sloshed some betadine over their bottoms, then made quick work with her 11 blade surgical knife and sliced their balls off. The two little squealers were castrated before I even fully comprehended what was happening. Apparently, she does that to help them grow faster and taste better. And probably so no one breeds her hogs without the additional "breeding fee." 

Two little newly-castrated Large Blacks, in our trailer and ready for the road!

Gritty Gretchen with a Red Wattle hog, another heritage breed.

A Mama Black and her litter.

Home at Blue Cloud. Check out the difference two months makes (one month vs. three months old). Eat up piggies!

So, after Rocky Mountain oysters, piglet style, we said our goodbyes to Cranky Carl's and headed home. A six hour drive through the rain was no fun for anybody, especially the little blacks, who started shivering on the way. But they toughed it through. They're now sharing a roof with our chickens, and the seem pretty content in their new home. For now, they are limited to the existing fenced-in pig pen with access to the chicken coop for cover; but we should have the electric fence up and running soon, and they'll have plenty of space and liberty to graze. Pigs that eat grass...and hay. It will sure be nice not to have to buy so much grain and corn this year. 

Lawn Furniture

Check out Bill's latest furniture: Adirondack chairs! Perfect for sitting in.