TOPIC: opening day...

I have a "whole-house" generator that runs on gas. We don't have the whole house wired to it but mainly the important stuff like the fridge, the water-well pump, the HVAC system, the TV room and the bedroom among others.

Our generator can run off propane or natural gas. We have free gas because we have a gas-well on our property. Electrical lines from the power station are all overhead so we lose power often so it's almost a must around here and most people have a generator, I sometimes feel bad for those who do not.

woodsrunner...

wow having your own gas well and generator for the important stuff... that goes a long way to being self sufficient (on some very important things)...

Now if you could just catch, kill, grow, and put up... the most of your food... you would have that self sufficiency thing down pretty good.

Won't be long now until Seng Hunting time... opens Sept 1 here... and I think in most states now days...

Anyone heard from a Local Dealer on Prices ?

I am still hoping the Chinese are wanting more GINSENG in this pandemic

TNHunter

Hey Guys...

That last post made me think about my options for selling ginseng this year...

My Local county ginseng dealer passed away back in early summer. He was quite old... in fact back in the 80's I used to sell fur to him... so he has been around a while. I think he was near 80 years old.

It seems to me that most seng dealers (that I know are older guys)...

I called for another guy that I have sold to in the past in a neighboring county... Jack Davis... and got his wife and she said he was not going to be buying this year. And added that they only knew of one dealer (up north of me) that might be buying this year.

Another dealer that I used to sell to over in Pulaski area... pretty sure he passed a way a couple years ago.

Seems like all of my dealers have gone by...

Just wondering if any of you guys have checked with local dealers that you have sold to in the past... and found them ready to buy this year ?

I love to dig it... but not if I can't sell it.

TNHunter

PS... see the post I just added in the Buying and Selling post area. Including a 2019 TN Dealers list (no 2020 to be found online yet)... and some info I got from a dealer in Dickson TN on possible prices this year.

To sum it up here.. he plans to start buying Green for 100.00 per pound... and thinks that Dry might peak out around 500.00 this year.
Just a TN dealers best guess at this point.

TNHunter

Couple dealers around here are saying that the market is likely going to be down around 10% this year but that was just their guess. They thought that dry would be around $600 a pound then maybe get that $100 bump later in the year. They also thought that green was going to open up around $150/pd then possibly go as high as $175. But in my opinion it’s not really going to matter because we have had less than an inch of rain in the past 4 weeks and a lot of the sang is already burnt and gone. I really wish they would consider opening the season up a little earlier..

TN, after I posted about the whole house generator I got to thinking about the doomsday preppers and various scenarios that they must be concerned about. If the "grid" goes down and I honestly am not sure what that means, well maybe my gas well goes down, something I have no control over. If the well goes down, I have no gas to run my generator and I'm in the dark with everybody else.

In our current state of remodeling the house, I don't have freezer space or any space to store meat and other food/canned items. I like to look at the positive side. Considering the devastation of the ginseng on my property from deer this summer, I have an ample supply of meat that I can harvest (if they're not infected with radioactive fallout).

If the grid is down long term, I'm sure it will affect manufacturing and eventually ammunition, fire starters and everything else will run out. Heck this happened with Covid to some degree and this is small scale from what some folks prep for.

I have no regrets serving in the military, but I envy where you're at with gardening and living in the woods, etc. But I'm having a good time learning.

Speaking of remodeling the house, I'm working in what we call the dining room. It is part of the original 1850 log cabin and at some point in time, someone installed a sink or washtub there which leaked for a very long time. The joist that "supported the floor on that side of the room is rotted and useless. I'm in the process of shoring up the beams that the joist once supported. The floor has a significant dip in the middle and somebody at some point in time "fixed it" by running strips of wood along the original floor planks, then they put plywood down with particle board on top of the plywood. Then another layer of T&G planking, then linoleum. I have no idea how many separate endeavors resulted in the current dilemma.

My goal is to have everything that must done with this house and property by the time I turn 62, then I focus on my "wants".

To be honest, I've slipped several "wants" into the must do projects.

my gen. is hook to my 500 gal. propane tank.it would last quite awhile,i built houses for 45 years[slowing down now].ive had many homeowners go the so called off grid,solar,wind,ect....I guess and old guy I talked to 15 years later put it best,"off grid dosent mean off the hook",,there are draw backs to all systems....well 500 a pound beats nothing,not great though,,ill have to think about how much I want to get out there and hunt....right now it in the 90's everyday..hope the big storm cools us off,

woodsrunner..

Per Google...
our power grid is a network of power plants, substations, transformers, wires, sensors and poles that carry electricity sometimes hundreds of miles to be distributed to our homes, schools and offices.

I think that normally when someone refers to living off grid, or the grid going down... they are referring to the grid mentioned above per Google. The Electric grid...

Most folks, including me are very dependent on Electricity...

Having your own gas well, and a generator that runs off that gas... I would think would be the dream situation for most preppers.

I have an alternate heat source (my main source is Electric Heat Pump)... but I also have a LP gas vent free fireplace in my living room, that would keep the core of our home warm if the Elec was out a while... (we have experienced that for a few hours at times).. we have a very small (120 gal) LP Gas Tank ... but the fire place is the only Gas thing we have and one fill up (I normally do in July or early August) will get use thru the entire winter and we run that fire place quite a lot (nothing like a flame to back up to when you really want to warm up)....

But when the Electric is out.. I have no generator, so my Freezer and Fridge(2)... are sure points of concern. Would hate to see all of that spoil. Luckily I have not experienced that... our Elec it pretty dependable here in TN (with the TVA network in place). Lots of Dams that generate electricity placed all over the TN River...

Not sure I will make any changes to our current Home to allow for generator... since we plan to sell our BIG home in the next year or two... and build a new (smaller one)... down sizing since our Kids have all grown up and moved off. I will sure consider that for our new home.

I could always get a smaller portable generator... something that would run my Fridge and Freezer, and perhaps a few other small things, just in case we do experience a Elect outage for days, weeks... One that runs off LP gas would probably make good sense.. since i have a tank for that. If full, I suppose 120 gal of LP Gas would run a smaller generator for a while??? would be nice to know how long...

I will have to check into that..

Water is another thing, that most of these Prepper types are listing as a big concern. Good reason, you just can't live long without it.

Just down the hill, about 1/4 mile from my house, there is a huge spring, gushing water out of a rocky area, instant spring creek about 6' wide.
It would be a pain to have to go and get water, but I could do that and have a very good source for that.

We have city water ... even though we are outside the city limits... and it has always been on for us other than just a few short maintenance outages.
I should have Water covered well..

Did a quick search on Amazon... and found this Dual Fuel (Gas and LP) Generator (with electric start).

===
www.amazon.com/DuroMax-XP4400EH-Starting...Z0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

With 4,400 starting watts and 3,500 running watts, this unit can handle heavy loads from lights and a refrigerator to a home air conditioner and high amperage power tools. Operate at both 120 V and 240 V simultaneously, or at 120 only with full power
====

With 3500 running watts...
a quick google search shows that Refrigerator/Freezer ( wattage use for generator 400-800, freezer 600-1000)...
no doubt i would need to check my appliances and find out for sure what kind of wattage they actually use.

I noticed it said Suggested tank size for LP - 20 gal.

I wonder if it would mind being hooked up to my 120 gal tank ?

Also wonder just how long 20 gal of LP or 120 Gal would run it.

Oh well,, lots to consider on the generator thing. I will have to research that some.

On Selling my BIG home... and downsizing... that has always been part of my long term retirement plan.. and retirement is getting closer for me.
When I do that, I will be selling around 10 acres of land with the house... which unfortunately includes the spot where my Seed Producing Ginseng bed is.

So.. looks like, if not this fall, perhaps next fall, I will be either relocating those big seed bed seng roots... or perhaps harvesting some of them to sell and moving a few (to my other acreage where we plan to build the new home).

It has sure been fun having that Seed Bed these last 10 years.. I am sure I will relocate at least some of them to keep them.

TNHunter

The dealer in my county (who I believe low-balls on most things) has not posted their ginseng buyer price yet. Last year they opened at $250 then went up to $400. Out of principle, if I ever sell I'll look for other buyers. I take my aluminum cans to this place and I just get bad vibes from them, like they're out to rip folks off.

TN, we had propane in OR but my wife was in charge of checking and ordering more propane so I don't know what size tank we had. She said we had it filled three times a year. She is going to try to dig up an old bill that might indicate the size of our tank.

I'm now also curious if the operational well on our property relies on electricity. I'll find this out. There is an abandoned well that had electrical lines running up to it, I know because they're now lying on the ground. I've considered cutting down the poles that supported them, I'm sure I could find a good use for them.

We (as well as most folks in our area) had a portable gasoline operated generator in OR, similar to what you might see at construction sites. When we would lose electricity, I would set up the generator just outside the garage door and run a couple of extension cords under the door and into the house to keep the fridge and other essential items running. I think it was similar to the one in your link but only ran on gas.

Funny, we had a nice cool morning (and day) so my wife and I took a walk up into the property to check game cams and berries, at some point I heard what I thought was my neighbor on his tractor, my wife said no, it's an airplane. As we walked and got closer to the house I thought it was the neighbor's sump pump. Then we got closer and realized it was our generator, or electricity had gone out and was out for about 6hrs.