Archive for February 14th, 2011

Shrinking Paycheck

14 February 2011

So Wisconsin’s new Governor Walker is attempting to bust public employee unions. I know we’re all going to have to make sacrifices, but he’s going about it in a shitty way. I’m betting my paycheck is going to shrink by 5-10% this year.

Anyway, we’re going to have start being more careful about our expenditures than we’ve been in the last couple of years. This is probably just the beginning of a long decline. This is what all the money and financial bloggers have been predicting for years, that the decline will seem relatively slow to those of us experiencing it, but major losses will take place over a twenty-year period. That’s what Sharon Astyk always said, that there probably won’t be dramatic drops in income or standards of living, but that more and more people will enter into what she calls normal human poverty.

This is all part of the financial meltdown, climate change, and peak oil trio of disasters we’re facing.

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Firewood Delivery

14 February 2011

We had a face cord of mixed mostly hardwood delivered last Saturday morning, 2/12. It cost $120, cash, from Dave Lovejoy. Seems like a decent chap. His business is land clearing, so the wood is a by-product and a sideline.He dumped it in the driveway in front of the garage, so then we had to move most of it to the back porch, a little to the woodbox, and a little to the garage. D, G, and M all helped move the wood, and afterwards it dawned on me that maybe those boys will be able to make a real contribution to the labor around here some day. Wow.

Anyway, Dave said a full cord is three times as much wood for $250 cash, and I’m planning to give him a call and order that in June or so. I might even get two cords. I wonder if his little dump truck will hold that much.

I measured the place on the back porch where I keep some firewood, and figured out that it’s almost exactly a face cord. That’s really good to know — will help in determining how much we burn and how much we get when we buy wood.

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