Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Tuesday, October 28. 2008

Winter in New England: Jump Starters

Winter in central New England entails jump-starters, oil lamps and lanterns, snow-blowers, snow plows, flashlights, snow shovels, plenty of firewood, hats and long-johns, and good gloves and boots of all sorts. Global cooling will be here soon. Oh, and 4WD for the sissies and the city-folk for whom a little snow and ice are daunting - and for your plow truck. Gas generators? We country folk don't go in for those.

I keep one of these charged up in the garage, and it came in handy when one of the tractors, rarely used this summer, had both a dead battery and squishy front tires Saturday. I had been using the Ford all summer, and figured I ought to get the Farmall moving a little to prevent Tractor Arthritis.

What was my chore? Heading up into the woods with the wagon to clear our cross-country ski trails of fallen trees, and to accumulate some more firewood in the process.

This cool thing solved both problems easily:

 

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:27 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (2)
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Winter in New England #3: Wood and Pellet Stoves
This is the third in our Winter in New England series. First was Lamps and Lanterns, and the second was Jump Starters. More to come, on Tuesdays.A friend did the research on this topic for me, because we were both looking for something good.My friend conc
Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Nov 04, 09:36
Winter in New England #4: Layers
This is the fourth in our Winter in New England series. First was Lamps and Lanterns, the second was Jump Starters, and the third was Wood and Pellet Stoves. More to come, each Tuesday come Hell or high water - until I run out of ideas.In the process of d
Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Nov 10, 12:55

Comments
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You are lucky to live somewhere that has proper seasons...in my part of england it's pretty much just different types of rain for most of the year...tedious.
#1 thud (Link) on 2008-10-28 17:36 (Reply)
Proper seasons? Pah! I grew up where there were "proper seasons" and vowed that if I lived long enough I was going somewhere warm most of the year. It took me 32 years to get to Texas (1985) and that is where I intend to stay....unless I can get a plot in Costa Rica. Then it'll be jungle living for me.
#2 JoeC on 2008-10-28 17:52 (Reply)
rats! I wanted to add, I have never had much luck with those power-pack battery thing-a-ma-bobs. I've had three over the years and I find the gel-cell most of them use go dead at the most inopportune time, with no indication that there is no charge. Charge light shows full charge, use shows no/low current available (high resistance cell), or they end up overcharging and leaking. I'm glad you found one that works for you.
#3 JoeC on 2008-10-28 17:56 (Reply)
Well,had you used the Farmall this summer instead of the Ford,you would have had many more problems with the oval.

Sorry,I grew up with farmalls. If it isn't red,may as well be in the shed!
#4 chris horton (Link) on 2008-10-28 18:45 (Reply)
The smaller, less expensive models of these jumper thingies make good gifts for yutes heading off to college or wherever for their first time away from home with their own auto.

My experience with them so far is that they last roughly as long as a car battery. Another experience is that you need to keep track of the charging adapter - without it the things is worthless and I haven't found that my "universal" charging adapters work with the jumpers I've had.

I keep one of these charged and ready to go. I pondered getting the dual jumper & air pump devices but, so far, have opted for separate ones. Less convenient but more flexible.

Oh, and BTW, they are useful for the lamp and for recharging cell phones when you have a short duration home power failure.
#5 Knucklehead (Link) on 2008-10-28 19:24 (Reply)
Who you calling a sissy ? I grew up in a suburb of Boston, but know live in Cowhampshire, and can run circles around these country folk. I betcha you drive one of them thar Volvo's. Mr cherry bomb mouth. Oops I mean Mr B. : )
#6 jappy on 2008-10-28 19:41 (Reply)
Well, we "sissies" here in Texas [Houston} find small generators reeelly helpful. In the recent unpleasantness [Hurricane Ike], we had an 11 day power outage, and our little Honda generator, although not big enough to power the house electricity and air conditioning, was hearty enough to run our fridge, and two shop lights, a fan and our neighbors' fridge for all that time. We turned it off at 10 pm every night and back on at 6 am, so that it wouldn't catch fire while we weren't watching it.

I've lived through blizzards [my youth in Milwaukee] and hurricanes [see above] and by now I figure that there's no place with perfect weather. You pays your money and you takes yer choice.

Ohhh ... and I forgot tornadoes. Inland Texas has those. There's just no escaping it.

One thing we can be sure of, though. Despite what Fat Albert says, there is no manmade global warming. Great con you've got going there, Al, but more and more folks aren't buying it.

Marianne
#7 Marianne Matthews on 2008-10-28 23:02 (Reply)

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