Friday, April 16, 2010

Last Monday I got my second shot of Syn-Visc One, and to my surprise, it was not very painful at all. Now, the two valiums I took 45 minutes before surely helped calm me and Dr. Barranco said that because I didn’t clench up, the shot wasn’t bad. My leg hurt Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but now, on Friday, it is holding up well.
I took a hike up to the poplar grove to look for morels, and immediately found one, and then it took me twenty minutes to find a second. There were a lot of deer tracks up there and there are many turkeys around so I think they are getting most of the morels. When I got home I chopped up the two morels, cooked them in a little olive oil and then added three eggs and had a wonderful breakfast.
I was able to start treating the first bridge with the Thompson’s water seal, but it is still going to be tricky to get a tarp under it with just one person. Mike doesn’t seem interested right now so I will have to improvise.
I went fishing this afternoon on the North Fork for the second time this spring and I had some luck. I caught two bluegills and a chub on a wooly bugger. Nothing big but a lot of fun.
Last week I had to replace the propane refrigerator, which had broken down. I looked into buying another propane one but they are very expensive. To replace the 12 cubic foot one in the house would have cost over $3000 and I wasn’t using a quarter of it. I checked out how much electricity a compact electric would use (the 3.1 cubic foot one I purchased uses 337 kilowatts a year, so a little less than a kilowatt a day). Right now I am getting over 4 kilowatts a day from the sun and my use each day—including the refrigerator—is between 1.8 and 2.5. I should be fine until late November and by then, if I have to, I can shut the refrigerator off and keep my salad and stuff in a cooler (so it won’t freeze) in my truck. By mid-February my charts show that I am getting over 2 kilowatts so by March I am sure I will have enough electricity to put the refrigerator on again. The 3.1 cubic foot model only cost $200 so that is a real savings over a propane one, and I won’t be using any more propane for refrigeration, which should be a real savings.

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