BMN Wind power air compressors, Pendaries, development

[Boss]

Brian's Morning Newsletter

February 25th 2008

Good Morning

This weekend I worked in Bernal on Saturday and Sunday Jackson and I attended a meeting with other locals concerned about the possibility of commercial  development property up the road from us. We are working together to look at such things as loopholes in county regulations pertaining to development as well as conservation of sustainable land use. When I returned home and Nell asked how the meeting went, I said, "Funny how a bunch of activists want to keep things the way they are." Not that my quirky statement means anything, but it does display my level of understanding of politics. Thank goodness we have people in this new group who do get it, and know what to do. Of major concern is water usage. As it stands the developers are only applying for four water systems on 49 acre parcels. Rumor has it the developers intend to keep dividing their land, which will stress the water supply to the neighborhood. At the meeting we formed a workable strategy for opposing this type of development. For example, group members will meet with county commissioners and express our concerns, others will research the county codes and look at other county's with good systems in place so we can learn how best to proceed.

Jackson and I drove to the meeting in one of the VW diesel Rabbits. We wanted dad to go, but the car is really small. Actually, I was going to continue on from the meeting and work on a friend's computer issues. I told Jack that a shorter first drive in the Rabbit was probably a better plan anyway. I'll have to reschedule the service call in Las Despensas. Coincidentally, a woman at the meeting needs me to work on her family's network and she lives near this other job, both way the heck and gone up in the mountains. Now I just need to find the time to do these jobs. Starting this week I am working an additional day for Desertgate.com in Pendaries Village, Rociada. This reminds me that I went to work on Friday with a degree of anxiety, not knowing whether I was in for a difficult couple of jobs doing wireless Internet installations in expensive homes or the beauty of the land would prevail. Well, it wasn't too bad, the first house was a condominium. Ron and Eric from Desertgate were with me and we quickly assessed the situation and decided to add another WiFi relay antenna nearby, in order to get a better line of sight for the signal. Today I return to this Pendaries condo and install the equipment.

The second home was a brand new grid-tied solar home in Gascon, which is further north than Rociada. This job was a pleasant experience and I hope these folks let us add their home to the Solar Tours at NMSEA. I think we will see this couple here on the BMN before long. David is from Australia and Molly New York. David and I talked extensively about renewable energy and land and all kinds of stuff. For the rest of the day I was thinking in phrases like, "I'll just nip off and take the rubbish." "Alrighty mate."

I don't know what the weather will be like up the valley today, but I can guess. It appears to have rained on and off all night long here and while we were up our valley which is next to Rociada valley at the community meeting, it rained the entire time. Saturday I added six gallons of biodiesel blend to the Trooper and Sunday I put five gallons in the Peugeot for Nell. We may be pushing our luck, but it has been warmish lately. It took Nell several attempts to get the Peugeot diesel to start and I had to put the booster on it finally. Eventually it started, during which time little snow pellets began to fall. All this means exactly what? Like I said, I don't know what the day holds for me, but I am on my way up and into a dark and stormy looking area at the foot of the Sangre de Christo mountains.

So here we go for another week.

Please go to www.outfitnm.com if you have a chance and see the new pages. We now have several youtube videos under the media tab. I have updated almost every page and reordered the whole lot. One of the first letters this morning is from another Australian who had difficulties loading certain pages. This is the feedback we need to make the site one that people will want to visit. Again, we implore of you to log on and post on the forums, this is what it is there for. If you don't see a topic that suits you please suggest it. We want you to be happy.

Brian Rodgers

Contents

   1. Letters

         1. Go to this website and look at the wind turbine and the air compressor driven by the blades. www.airliftech.com

               1. Welden is suggesting the use of a wind powered air compressor for the algae growth tanks at Luna CC. Brian

         2. Hey Brian,

         3. I checked out your website and well done on havin' a go mate creating it. I couldn't read some of the stuff for it was cut off on the rh side and i guess this is why my computer told me their were errors on the page and that i realize it is still under development too.

         4. G'day Brian

         5. thought i'd let ya know too that the PDF document for general info about bio diesel on ur website doesn't load fully and the info isn't there.

         6. On the forum, the recent posts  are still are lagging. Whazzup?

         7. Male Assertiveness

   2. Astronomy Picture of the Day

          3. Musical Legend Willie Nelson on Farm Aid, Biodiesel Fuel, Outlaw Country Music, Marijuana Laws, the Impeachment of President Bush, the 9/11 Attacks & More

Please visit http://outfitnm.com for the rest of the newsletter      

[Boss]

Brian's Morning Newsletter

February 26th 2008

Good Morning

What'll I yak about this morning? Working so much I haven't any stories except those which are work related. Installing WiFi on and in expensive homes is pretty much everything I assumed it would be. I don't like modular houses very much, but they sure are easy to install cable on. I had to go up on the roof, like eight times just to feed the cable around all the dormers and angled roof lines. Then it's like 200 feet back inside to where the interior WiFi router is mounted, all the while walking very carefully. With long drill bits sticking out of my pockets I am walking on egg shells through a maze of art and knickknacks. On the positive side there are the beautiful Sangre de Christo mountains a stone throw away. While I was on the roof I could feel a spray as the high mountain winds relocated the upper sections of snow from one peak to another. Nature in motion, similar I thought, to sand dunes moving in the wind. Yep, those mountains make their own weather.

I stopped in to Slim the sawyer's house on the way back. We talked about cutting a little timber for my new renewable energy workshop. He said the man with the log skidder didn't think it would be worth it to haul all the heavy equipment here just for a couple dozen trees. I said, "Right, it was you that wanted this guy to do the work." What I want, is to do the work myself taking less trees and spending more time being careful thus protecting the ground while working. I need to start working on the building plans. It's the only way I can figure out what materials I want to cut. My brother suggests that with these large diameter trees we cut wide boards to use as siding and I like the idea too. So now we have a timber frame construction with roughsawn 2"X20" planks for the exterior surfaces which are not already designated double pane sliding glass door panels. Getting pretty specialized aren't I?

Renewable resources used for building in which to work building renewable energy projects. Visualizing the whole project can get pretty damn complicated, because this isn't just a building for making cool projects, it is going to be built with as much material as we can find here found on our land. Once I have some crude drawing to work with, we can begin to cut exactly the trees we need to make the beams. I still haven't decided on a roof design. I've always liked the look of the Australian outback hip roof style which is roughly a pyramid shape, with porches all around. But this style is not good for solar gain. So then I thought about a standard peaked roof, still not good for solar gain. Really the ugliest style is what I used on the house down the hill. It has a single slope with the peak on the south side, with lots of windows and thermal mass wall space facing south. Great gain, but it looks like hell. Somewhere there must be a compromise. Any ideas? I need to work through roof design before I can pick the timber I need. Obviously, one set of long single roof beams would be needed if I go with the single slope roof. I can break up the distance with some kind of dual pitched roof lines, but the building will be small so beam length won't be an issue.

Don't know.

Much obliged if you have ideas you will share.

Brian Rodgers

Contents

   1. Letters

   2. way the heck and gone up in the mountains

   3. Hi Brian,

   4. I love what your doing. Keep up the good work. I am a 4th year student in Scotland.

   5. Will a Loaf of Bread Cost $10??

         1. Absolutely we'll help assemble bird houses.  I want to do more farming here. Don't forget Jack and I will jump when you call us about capturing a bee swarm this Spring. Getting excited to be back in the bees. Brian

   6. [Discussion] NM voter registration database hugely problematic

   7. AP Centerpiece: Voters, poll workers question accuracy of lists

   8. Astronomy Picture of the Day

   9. [NMLUG] Idea Propulsion Lab: A new club for hardware hackers

  10. Not a 4x4, but it is an Isuzu now converted to a diesel! (warning lots of pictures)

         1. Editors note: He is done and the car passed Texas inspection. Brian

               1. It took about 15 minutes to get the thing inspected and registered.

Please visit http://outfitnm.com for the rest of the newsletter  

[wdyasq]

If you are going to build a timber-frame I suggest you get someone familiar with timber-frame roofs and timber-frame joinery to help in the design. There are very good reasons traditional timber-frame houses look as they do. It will be difficult to beat the 2000 years or more of evolution a timber-frame building has.

Be very aware the bent and purling construction is unlike a 'conventional roof' in methods of construction and stress calculations.  25-30 years ago there was a revival in that type construction and many good books were written on it at that time. A lot of bad books were also written in the same frame.

Ron

[Boss]

Brian's Morning Newsletter

February 27th 2008

Good Morning

Getting a late start this morning, not because I woke late, up at 3:30AM, again, don't know what that's about. I guess I'm a little worn out from working so much. I'll feel better when I get a chance to spend some of the extra cash on one of the projects coming up this Spring. Yeah, 3:30 in the morning, no wonder I'm tired. But guess what? I am going to show you a selection of the the better stuff right here where you can peruse it at your discretion and at a decent hour too. Oh boy, huh? Let's see, first I decided to check in at my favorite biodiesel forum http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums. After all, Spring is almost here and we need to get back into the swing of things with home brew fuel. Plus, it was suggested during a meeting with the IT Director at the community college where we are building wind turbines that I could build the school a biodiesel processor to earn a small salary as instructor and trainer.

Yesterday, I had a couple of hours between WiFi installations and met with Austin and Kevin for lunch. Afterward Kevin and I consulted with the electricians who are wiring the new workshop at the renewable energy building. I found the perfect room for the biodiesel processor. It needs an exhaust fan and it is set to go with double doors to the outside. Next, we queried three biodiesel supply related companies about accepting purchase orders from the school. Finally we went to the cafeteria to test their supply of waste cooking oil. I don't know if it was because of the cold weather, but the WVO was coagulated and nasty looking. I asked the administrator not to get his hopes up for a biodiesel program using all the grease the cafeteria can produce right from the start. My experience dictates that once he got it in his head that we can make biodiesel from grease he already severed the contract with the renderer. I suppose a certain amount of bureaucracy makes checks and balances. From a money point of view, the school can buy a biodiesel processor if they don't need to spend money on renderer removing grease.

The Isuzu Trooper is about to receive its second tankful of biodiesel. Everything seems well with the Trooper, although it is smoking more than it did last year. Probably needs a tuneup again. Perhaps I'll pull the fuel injectors and have them cleaned and tested. More likely, I'll pull the injectors out of the first Trooper we bought and use them, as they have around 150,000 miles less on them. Amazing how many miles these diesels can go, huh. The Isuzu I use for work has 255,000 miles on the odometer. I've only added a few thousand miles to it. Nell's car, the Peugeot 505s TD seems to have clogged fuel filters again. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, the car hasn't been used this Winter at all and the both filters were replaced at the end of Fall. I thought it had algae in the fuel. I remember there being a reddish tone to the biodiesel when I changed the filters. Both dino-diesel and biodiesel can support algae growth. However, I inspected the glass bowl on the main filter and it was clear. I don't know if severe cold kills the algae and what effect this has on filters.

I may work on the cars today, but I am more inclined to work in the forest. I need a change of pace. We're thinning the forest a little more around the Tusas Campo site. Not many trees, just a few here and there, to give us some firewood for Memorial Day, and to help protect the area from wildfire. It looks like it will be sunny and warm today. I'll call the guys and see what they are doing. Yeah they are thinking the same thing.

Have you been to the web site forums? I see some activity there. Thank you dad for your comments, as always you are right on. Hugh, Murf, Ken and Janice all have added to the forums in the last few days. I worry that th rest of you are missing their comments and that I should copy them here because of relevancy and importance. So please if you can spare a minute to log in and read and pretty please make a comment of your own it would make me ever so happy. At the bottom of the forum page there is a recent comments section which makes it quicker to find the new stuff. I haven't quite figured out how to return to the recent comments after reading so I just hit the Forum tab at the top again. Maybe you found a better way, let us know.

That's it for Wednesday.

I'll be back tomorrow, until then, mucho gusto!

[Boss]

Brian's Morning Newsletter

February 28th 2008

Good Morning

How the heck are ya? We had a wonderful day yesterday working in the forest. It was warm, I don't exactly know how warm, sixty something maybe. Whatever, it was a much needed change of pace for me and the Central Meadow got a little grooming in the process. For the morning I ran the human powered pole saw limbing Ponderosa Pines up to 16 feet. Normally, I can't do the pole saw for this long, but I have been feeling very pudgy from a long Winter of inactivity, so I really pushed myself. It felt great and this morning my abs ache, so I guess it was working the part of my body I needed. After, pruning trees, I sharpened Jack's 036 Stihl chainsaw and felled eight large trees. Dad, Jackson, and I have been marking trees we think need to be removed for any number of reasons. One tree, for instance, opened the stage to more sunshine so that when we setup the photovoltaic panels on the roof again this year, we can glean more solar energy.

Strange how my mind set has changed since I have been considering solar and wind power. I have always imagined forest settings for small cabin sites. Now I look at these sites and a whole new dimension presents itself. We are blessed with many wonderful cabin sites on this property. Some of them look better than others, now that I consider how tall a wind turbine tower would need to be to put the props above the trees. Then there is the solar component. When looking at a cabin site in the forest, seasonal position of the sun becomes an issue because mountains and tall trees already limit direct sunlight to the photovoltaic panels. What it comes down to it with wind & solar power the cabin might be better placed on a hilltop to keep the cable from the wind turbine as short as possible. Higher placement of panels also will result in longer direct sun time. Of course, how much more is proportional to the geographic of the site.

We have several south facing slopes on the property. The Central Meadow has a couple, more or less, of slopes facing the south. In the Summer it doesn't matter that much, but during Winter months, a well placed cabin site can get an extra hour or more direct sunlight. I'm sure there are statistics and engineering to support this, but I am more of a seat of the pants thinker. Obviously, yesterday wasn't the first time I spent the day in the woods here at the ranch; I have many thousands of hours working and recreational time on our land. Thinking sustainable living in a forest cabin is more recent on my mind. Although this idea of cabins for family members was always something my father hoped for. If it is okay with my parents, I am moving toward leasing cabin sites to family and friends, provided the site is developed with sustainability in mind. Living with the land will also include building on a site which is accessible relative to seasonal use.

This brings me to a point we need to make concerning this year's Tusas Campo. Access. Severe hail storms last Summer put a hurtin on our roads. When you come to Las Tusas on Memorial Day this year you will see first hand what fast moving washes of hailstones can do to a pasture. Areas where we had rock and brush dams to hold the soil from erosion were washed out by the tremendous power of hails flows. Well rocked and graveled roads too were hit hard by the Summer storms. We are reestablishing a Las Tusas tradition this year: The pre-Tusas road party. If you can come out the weekend prior to Memorial Day and help gather rock and place it in the worst areas we would appreciate it. This pre-Tusas work party will be May 17th and 18th Bring a tent and camp if you like. In fact, you can setup your family camp site and have it ready to go for the next weekend. We don't know what kind of turnout we'll have this year. If it is anything like last year, we had a dozen campers for the Thursday "Management" camp. Friday fifty more campers showed up during the day and early evening. Then on Saturday blammo. a couple of hundred campers milled around generally having a blast meeting new people and greeting old friends.

Jackson is thinking of having an entry booth at his house this year. Everyone is encouraged to stop in at the gate and pick up the Tusas camper's rule book. A $20.00 donation is recommended for each carload. The money will be used to pay for liability insurance for the weekend. Jack will also have an assortment of custom Tusas 2008 Tee-Shirts for sale.

So there you have it for another Thursday.

I've been thinking I wouldn't mind taking a break from the newsletter. Perhaps slowing it down to only three times per week. But then I start writing and I can't seem to stop. I don't know where so many words come from, but I can't imagine what would happen if I couldn't let it out every day.

With my heart, I thank you for reading and corresponding.

Brian Rodgers

[Boss]

Brian's Morning Newsletter

February 29th 2008 An extra day for leap year.

Good morning. How about that? An extra day in which we can do what we like. Maybe we should make it a holiday; every body take the day off and go fishing. Tell your boss, Brian said it was okay. So let me see where do we stand this morning? Lot's of letters this morning. Thank you everyone for your support for our efforts with the roads at Tusas Campo. We are hopeful that we'll be able to purchase a coupe of truckloads of gravel this year prior to Tusas.

Yesterday was my day to work with Kevin at the renewable energy labs at Luna Community College. At this stage, I am a volunteer. We hope my status changes soon to instructor/trainer. Yesterday I finished my morning service call early and went to the alternative DMV, aptly called QuickDMV, to switch the title on the VW Rabbit to our name, and register it up. Of course they had a problem with the title because the previous owner signed it Bill instead of William. Arrgg. Bureaucracies. Who cares? Did you notice the price tag there mr. paper pusher? This car cost less than the paper you are going to print the title on. Just stamp the stupid thing. Grrr. No I have to go back after I get a piece of paper signed the states the Bill is William, like this isn't obvious. Yep they lived up to their name real well.

I arrived at the college before noon, so my son Austin and I went to lunch at Estella's one of the best hole in the wall restaurants in Las Vegas NM. When we got back we worked on the banner for http://outfitnm.com I need to place this ad (displayed to the below) in New Mexico web sites and steer traffic to our new site, before it fades into Internet obscurity. Hugh makes a valid observation on the forums that taking a poll with so few members visiting won't carry any validity. Anyway we had a lot of fun playing with Adobe After Effects We were able to open this animated gif of a wind turbine and add the text to it.

The rest of the day I spent working at Luna CC renewable energy department. The tools and materials for the wind turbines aren't here yet, so I concentrated on the biodiesel processor for the college. I've got a room picked out for the processor. It has water nearby which I'll need for washing the raw biodiesel. As I go through the steps in my mind I see more and more things which need to be dealt with. For instance, here at the ranch draining the wash water into the pasture hasn't been a problem since the water is non toxic although skewed in PH toward alkaline. For this new processor I need to consider the college was just busted for disposing of computer monitors in the same field I want to drain the wash tank. I don't want to get them in trouble again, so I will ask the EPA what they think of this, before I do it. I have a contact locally in the EPA and I will ask her what the school needs to do to be in compliance with surface water rules.

Kevin contacted all the companies I do business with in my biodiesel processing. Some said they will accept Luna CC purchase orders and one will not. The company that can not, sells the kit which would have saved me a ton of paperwork in sourcing processor parts. So I have my work cut out for the next few weeks. Again, more work for me saves the college money. Why is this always the way it works? I am not alone in this type of fretting when mentioned to anyone at the school, they all say, "Welcome to Luna." Nobody gives money away, and I don't expect a free ride. This volunteering to a school which charges students for classes just doesn't seem right to me. But it's a good cause. If I don't get my hopes up for reimbursement for my time and then it happens, that'll be too cool.  I will either become accustomed to their methods and find ways to make this arrangement mutually beneficial, or I will go about my way.

Simple really.

How to build a sustainable relationship with a renewable energy program?

Ironic ain't it?

Please visit http://outfitnm.com for the rest of the newsletter  

[Boss]

Hey Ron

What is "bent and purling construction?" I am just beginning to work on the timber construction design for our new shop. We have built several timber structures here in northern New Mexico. This doesn't mean I know what I'm doing of course. I need all the advice I can get. Smiles