Propane is widely sold as a cleaner and cheaper fuel to heating oil, especially in rural Western NY in areas lacking natural gas lines. Oil still remains dominant though in rural parts around the Hudson Valley. I don’t know if electricity is that much of a threat to propane, although it’s obvious that propane dealers see the writing on the wall, or at least are pretty fearful about heat pumps and greater electrification of rural residences. A farm or rual residence might be a good place for solar panels, and if you can make your own energy, why pay a propane dealer?
I have some experience working with propane having used it a fair bit for camping over the past six and half years with a twenty gallon tank and my big buddy heater, propane stove and lantern. Propane has its pros and cons for sure — it’s a relatively clean fuel but it can get very dirty from the oils on connectors taking them in and apart in the woods. But certainly propane is a much cleaner and more reliable fuel then the awful liquid gas stoves I used to use, especially when burning regular gasoline.
When I own my own land and have an off-grid cabin, I will probably use propane but I’m not sure if I would want to use it as a primary heating fuel, as it’s relatively expensive and makes you dependent on propane deliveries, which can be difficult if not impossible in remote country. Plus it sure seems l like some of the propane dealers engage in scammy business models. While bulk propane delivery is much cheaper, getting a 100 lb or even a 30 lb tank might be a better option, as you can take it to any propane filler to get filled and have multiple tanks around.
Most energy consumed by propane is by far for heating. While I might keep a propane wall heater or a big buddy heater for warming things up quickly in the cabin when things are cold, I think the best method of heating remains wood, harvested and processed yourself. Wood is a carbon neutral fuel if harvested from your own acreage, it’s not dependent on market prices. Propane though is good for cooking, although if you have a wood-stove going, you might as well make breakfast and other meals in a cast iron skillet right on the wood-stove, rather then consuming expensive gas.
In the summer, an outdoors cook-stove might be a good option, although in my experience in Boy Scouts, cooking on wood isn’t as easy as you might think to control heat levels, and it’s a lot of waiting for coals to build up. Maybe though in a regular outdoor cook-stove it’s easier to cook then an smokey, open fire. At least with a cook-stove you can ventilate the smoke up and above and not have it in your face, and to boot, papers and wrappers can be disposed of after cooking so you have less kitchen trash around. But I don’t know, there is definitely some advantages to cooking with gas, especially in rural areas without access to high-voltage electricity.
Truck yeah or something like that … this video is surprisingly interested and insightful but maybe it’s how I like this girl thinks about how shitty things have gotten in America.
I need to get out of the city, drive a country mile
Get back to my roots, before two worlds collide
I want sausage biscuit gravy, sweet tea from a jug
So jump into my pickup truck, and I’ll fire it up
We burn our trash out in the backyard in a barrel
We feed our dogs and cats our table scraps
We get our eggs straight from the hen house, and our water from a well
Dig our onions and our taters from the ground
Yippee yi yo, yippee yi yay, I’m feelin' kind of haggard today
I want to get out on the river, catch a mess of fish
Throw a big ol’ party, that you don’t want to miss
We’ll have washer pits and horseshoes, shine and chocolate pie
'Cause when I’m on the swing with her it makes me almost high
Reminds me of traveling in Western Pennsylvnia, smelling the cow shit, the burnt plastic in the burning barrels, the oil wells, the kerosene and coal smoke from the rural homes. Beautiful, wild country, even if it's been blasted away from the explosions of powder and the coal mining.
There has been a lot of talk about black walnut syrup in the ag community for years now. I guess it's good, but it seems like a fad, soon enough to collapse in price, still it's an interesting topic.
My farm vet dissuaded me from purchasing a boar to start my herd by sharing horror stories about their razor sharp tusks and unpredictable nature. He said he’d personally rescued a guy from being trampled to death by an angry boar. So I decided to start with a sow. A pregnant sow. Ms. Piggie, as I named her, was a chocolate brown duroc-Yorkshire mix, with a mane of black hair running down her back. She was beautiful, all 350 pounds of her. This may sound strange, but I think pigs have the most human-like face of any animal – if you discount the snout and focus on the eyes, you’ll see what I mean. Ms. Piggie had these incredible eyelashes, just like Jim Henson’s muppet. The economics sounded promising: Pigs average about 10 babies per litter, so for the price of a few weaners I would end up with 10 pigs, plus a mama that I could breed again the next year, and the next, and the next. As with my goats, I would just rent a boar when the time came. That day never arrived, however, as my time as a pig farmer lasted just one stressful year. Here’s a few of the lessons I learned along the way.
